My prediction on immigration reform is that Republicans will end up passing (they control this, via the House) something small that’s enough to make Bobo say “still the part of Burke not Bachman” but not enough to keep Latinos from continuing to hate them for the foreseeable future. Jon Chait thinks the teahadists are getting ready to roll over on this one:
There’s something ritualistic about the conservative objections Rubio is getting. It’s not a real revolt. They’re going through the motions to prove to their audience that they have kept their purity, but conservative talk-show hosts and other activist types are not, for the most part, actually doing what it would take to kill the bill.
Time will tell, but I think if Erick Erickson and Rush Limbaugh send enough silly putty or bricks or tacos or whatever to scared Republican Congressmen, they’ll chicken out.
Villago Delenda Est
They all fear being primaried by someone even more unbalanced than they are.
They’ll chicken out. They’re all craven, pathetic cowards.
Roger Moore
Yup. The Republicans really need to fish or cut bait. They should either try to cozy up to Latinos by helping to pass real immigration reform, or they should play to the crazy base by killing it decisively. Splitting the difference by giving the Democrats just enough votes to pass something half-assed gives them the worst of both worlds: more Latino voters, no credit for helping, and one more feud between wings of the party.
BGinCHI
Of course no one is pointing out that the only real reason the GOP is talking about participating in this reform at all is to try to get some votes from the browns.
They could give a shit about immigrants or anyone struggling to make a new life in this country.
David Koch
don’t they realize spanish speaking Hezbollah terrorists are infiltrating the country disguised as roofers and landscapers!
Patricia Kayden
Isn’t this something they HAVE TO DO? Do they really have a choice? They can’t forfeit the Latino vote and win Presidential elections. I think they’ve figured that out.
red dog
When Big Ag and the chicken/pork processors put pressure on the GOPers will allow temp worker permits that will be good for 90 days at a time and renewable. No path to citizenship though.
piratedan
come on, please provide any evidence that these guys (Teh House R’s) will do anything that serves the needs of the general public unless they’re getting paid off to do so?
Antonio
The Latino vote always get’s broken down to immigration. It’s an important area for some segments of the Latino population, Cubans and Puerto Ricans aren’t really affected, but that’s not all there is. Latinos are a huge segment of small business and new business owners, a recent article on Fox Latino pegged us as starting 19% of the new businesses in 2012. The GOP’s policies favor entrenched businesses with lots of tax benefits for the wealthy and are anti innovation, CISPA and their support of the DMCA are examples. School closures under NCLB, with none of the alternatives that were promised, is hurting Latinos’ education rates. Texas has almost a 50% drop out rate, and there’s growing evidence that a lot of low performing ESL students are getting shunted out of schools to boost test scores. Pell grants were extended but offer less money so aren’t as helpful. Opportunity matters to Latino’s just as much immigration and the GOP is not the party who wants to provide it.
pacem appellant
Color me unconvinced. Nothing passes this session on immigration reform. Bobo blames it on Obama. Obama gets angry in a way that only a black muslim christianist kenyan can. Everyone wags their fingers at the President and urges him to comprise.
High balls all around for another successful session of congress.
David Koch
Don Young may stupidly think they’re “Wetbacks”, but in reality, they’re Friends of Hamas guerrillas infiltrating our fast food infrastructure, intent on poisoning our Doritos tacos, Big Gulps, and McRib sandwiches in what will amount to a drive-thur-window Pearl Harbor.
some guy
as the child ofg illegal immigrants, Rubio knows his amnesty plan can only pass with the support of Chuck Schumer.
when discussing the proposal with your wingnut friends, be sure to call it by it’s actual name: the Rubio-Schumer Amnesty Plan
Dolly Lllama
Hate to say it, but Rush was right on this one. It doesn’t make a damn whether they pass the thing or not, the Latino community still won’t vote for these fuckers. I think it’s funny as hell, myself.
Dolly Lllama
Damn, what got my comment in moderation? Was it the phrase “Rush was right?”
Dolly Lllama
Apparently so.
Zandar
I think the thought of restarting the Perpetual Self-Pissing Fear Machine up, especially with the Tsarnaevs being “immigrants”, is too good to pass up. Rand Paul has already done a 180 on immigration. More will Republicans will follow.
Immigration reform will die the same way gun legislation did: Tea Party will run out the clock until America gets tired of caring about immigration. The next round of debt ceiling nonsense will see to that.
PsiFighter37
No matter, the outcome, the Democratic candidate in 2016 will get more of the Latino vote than Obama did this year. If it’s Hillary, probably close to 80%.
I also think conservatives will figure out a way to screw this up in the House, and make themselves look really stupid and foolish while doing so – so even it passes, they get zero of the credit for it.
And for good eleven-dimension chess, Obama puts Rubio right next to him and gives him a big ‘ole hug. You know, the kind that sunk Charlie Crist.
Chris
@BGinCHI:
Yeah, and I’d be okay with that if they realized that “getting votes for the browns” actually means DELIVERING for them. I mean, that’s the essence of politics – “you want to get reelected? Deliver for me and I’ll send you back to Washington.”
The problem is that Republicans have, for the last fifty years, become used to identity-obsessed Angry White Conservative voters that you can satisfy with nothing but symbols and shibboleths. It’s made them lazy, and they have no idea anymore how to deal with voters who aren’t fooled by the bullshit and actually want substance.
Higgs Boson's Mate
When mandatory background checks failed to pass the Senate, whom did the R’s and the VSP blame? Immigration reform will die at the hands of the teahadists, but the publicly stated reason will be that it was Obama’s fault.
Chris
@Zandar:
The trouble is that unlike gun control, there’s a large and growing segment of the population that really does care about immigration as much as the teabaggers do, and somewhere in that segment are a lot of the 1%ers financing the GOP.
The Other Bob
With the Teahadiss fighting Rubio, we can await the MSM fawning over Rubio’s new moderate cred.
Hoodie
@Chris: The point was not so much to get votes from the browns, but to get the media to buy into a narrative that the Republican Party is not just a screaming gaggle of racists and xenophobes so self-styled “moderate” whites won’t feel icky voting Republican. Immigration reform will fail because it won’t play to the teahadists, especially after the Chechen Welfare Terrorists meme kicks in.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@Chris:
‘Cept that the fanatic wing of the GOP already views anyone even slightly to the left of them as sellouts to be primaried at the earliest opportunity.
Xecky Gilchrist
Forget it, Jake, it’s the Party of No.
@Patricia Kayden: Isn’t this something they HAVE TO DO?
The real difference between Reagan and Bush II Republicanism is that Reagan raised taxes when he had to, and Bush cut taxes when he had to raise them. Republicans no longer do stuff just because it’s necessary.
Litlebritdifrnt
OT but I heard a bird in the garden this weekend that I didn’t recognize the song was a very distinct “chewy,chewy,chewy(pause)chewy,chewy,chewy(pause)chewy,chewy,chew” anyone have any idea what it could be? (the internet is absolutely useless as I have tried all sorts of searches)
Higgs Boson's Mate
@Xecky Gilchrist:
After the gun control debacle I’m convinced that their secret mantra is “You aren’t the boss of me.”
Higgs Boson's Mate
@Litlebritdifrnt:
A parrot with a Tootsie Roll?
Roger Moore
@Higgs Boson’s Mate:
You mean it took you that long to figure it out?
piratedan
@Xecky Gilchrist: bingo….
lets bitch about unemployment, but offer no jobs bills…. lets bitch about the defecit, but only offer to strip poor people of their retirement to resolve it. Lets bitch about terrorists but let access to firearms stay ridiculously easy and toss out 200+ years of constitutional law because we can’t stop bombing brown people and if someone says Allah instead of Jesus they piss themselves.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@Roger Moore:
The passing years have slowed me on the draw.
ruemara
@Litlebritdifrnt: Chirpbacca?
NotMax
They can’t pooh-pooh anything about Rubio other than in the most cursory and toothless ways, as he has been dubbed by the party apparatchiks as La Gran Esperanza (more prosaically, He Whose Sh*t Don’t Stink).
Omnes Omnibus
You better not do anything reckless.
scav
@Litlebritdifrnt: you’re back with the UFB! Might not of direct use alas.
OT rerun on a less polluted thread but Hey Birders! Esp UK ones!
Tweet of the Day: David Attenborough to present (first month of) BBC Radio 4 birdsong series
Says it’ll be a permanent part of the website too, direct link here to home page, as well as a podcast. ahh, the beeb. chewy chewy chewy. Go Parrot with Tootsie Roll!
SiubhanDuinne
@Litlebritdifrnt: Could it have been a towhee?
Suffern ACE
@PsiFighter37: “we wanted to pass immigration reform but liberals wanted to use it to coddle Muslim radicals so we couldn’t. If you want to have this reform, look at what liberalism and their head up their asses denial that Muslim terrorism exists cost you. Vote for us rather than the Muslim terrorists and you’ll get common sense immigration reform without having your Latino children suffer from those anti-Christian Muslim terrorists.”
If I were running as a republican, I might try that message out. Are Latino men really all that different from Caucasian men in the cues they respond to? Why count on higher totals for Hilary?
Litlebritdifrnt
@Higgs Boson’s Mate:
I hate you.
@ruemara:
And you too.:)
Chris
@Xecky Gilchrist:
Exactly. That’s what makes them so dangerous.
NotMax
OT:
The irony is too, too precious.
Name of the boat Tsarnaev (a/k/a Suspect #2 at the time) hid in?
Slip Away II
(source)
Litlebritdifrnt
@SiubhanDuinne: No just checked out their calls and that is not it, this really was a very distinct “chewy” call that was unmistakable, I love the internet except when it gives me 20 million results none of which answer my question.
aimai
Nothing will get done because there is no “there there.” No earmarks and no serious budget process means that the Congresspeople are simply timeserving and lurching from crisis to crisis. They feel no loyalty to their party in a longterm sense, or don’t identify the Republican party in Washington (and its national electoral prospects) with the reality of their needs as congressmen in their home districts. They want to keep getting re-elected, and they want whatever sweet sweet graveytrain they can imagine getting onto to keep running past their door. But when it comes to delivering something with a long term payoff for their party they just won’t be able to figure out a way to do it. The entire party and its people are crafted around short term memory and short term gain. If you can’t show them the payoff right now, in absolute coin, they are not going to go against the wishes of their constituents for more and more poor people/brown people to be immiserated.
JWL
My take on immigration reform (or, for that matter, on every other matter of importance confronting the USA) is viewed through the prism that American fascism calls the shots in this country.
American fascism being defined as corporate power combined with control of governmental agencies; i.e., the Executive, Legislative, & Judicial branches of the federal government.
Yutsano
OT: Dear Aqua Buddha: If you’re explaining you’re losing.
NotMax
@Litlebritdifrnt
Had a minute free, and very first google-fu use says it is an American Redstart.
Redshift
@Chris:
I dunno, they spent a couple of decades giving the Religious Right little but lip service, until enough of them moved up through the ranks to take over the party. (“We totally would have outlawed abortion, but those awful Democrats blocked us, so we need you to work on campaigns again and get more of us elected!”) I don’t think that would work with Latinos, but the fact that it worked once makes it more likely that they’ll think it could work.
Redshift
@JWL:
If nothing but corporate power mattered, wouldn’t the last several versions of immigration reform have passed easily?
Litlebritdifrnt
@NotMax: Thanks but that is the first result google sent me to also, but this wasn’t a “sounds like” “chewy” it was the way a human would sing it, this is driving me nuts.
PsiFighter37
@Redshift: Hispanics are not single issue voters. One token vote is not going to change how they vote when they agree with us on the majority of policy issues. The fact that the GOP claims that Hispanics are a natural fit because of their possible social conservatism (given that they are more religious) shows how stupid and shallow they think about these issues.
Heck, just about everyone seems to understand this except for the wingnuts, who have assholes who get hung up on shit like abortion, gay marriage, and just about any other social issues under the sun. I think you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone in the Democratic Party that’s as hardcore single-issue as those guys are.
The GOP is stuck in a shit-stained cat litter box when it comes to this issue. They can vote for immigration reform, let Obama take credit for it (which will only infuriate the base more and alienate Hispanics even more); or they can stop it, and let even the dimmest of lights see that it’s the Republican’s fault – and they take the blame on it.
This is a clear win-win issue for us. Even if the GOP voted by unanimous consent for immigration reform, they’d get little to none of the credit for it.
Suffern ACE
@Redshift: well what have the democrats been doing but saying they want good schools and immigration reform but the bad republicans have been blocking it. Maybe the democrats were actually blocking those conservative initiatives. The legislayove system seems designed to let anyone block anything.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Litlebritdifrnt: I was going to suggest a Kentucky Warbler, but that may not be distinct enough, either. I’d definitely look through the warblers; several have a “chewee” call.
Dolly Lllama
Fuck almighty, I’m never getting out of moderation, apparently. My new ‘nym was fun for the few days it lasted. I lurked here for years before commenting. I reckon I can do it again.
danimal
I doubt immigration reform is much of an attempt to win over Latinos. It may be an effort to stop the bleeding, but any Republican operative counting on improved performance amongst Latinos is bound to become an unemployed Republican operative.
The GOP is pushing immigration to show moderate whites and Asians that they are better than the caricature version of the GOP they have shown themselves to be for the past couple of election cycles. If their public face remains Archie Bunker, they will circle the drain for a generation. Their problem? Archie ain’t going away, even if the institutional GOP wants him to shut up (while still funding and voting them). It will be quite the delicate dance, and House Dems will have a lot to say about the final immigration reform product. Should be fun to watch.
Chris
@Redshift:
For some reason, this puts me in mind of an old quote…
“Fascism may be defined as a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation, or victim-hood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy, and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion.”
– Robert Paxton
Keith G
@Chris:
Chris, this is a trump card. While there certainly will be those GOPers who care more about the teapartiers, a critical mass care about the corporations and other interests who really want/need this to be settled.
This will get done.
Johnny Coelacanth
If my skimming over the brimstone pits of FreeRepublic is any guide, the base will instantly brand as a RINO anybody who offers a plan that can, in any way, be construed as “amnesty.” In the mind of the average Freeper, Rubio is already consigned to the outer darkness. I don’t see the GOP making much headway towards a reasonable immigration policy if their most rabid supporters are this, uh, rabid.
Keith G
@Keith G: What’s with the intermittently available permission to edit?
Omnes Omnibus
@Keith G: FYWP thought that your comment was fine as it was.
Roger Moore
@Suffern ACE:
Yes. They have pretty much the opposite reaction from Anglo men when the Republicans bitch about wetbacks. For all the talk about Republicans’ messaging discipline, it’s mostly about their ability to say the same thing about the day’s talking point. Once it drifts out of the headlines, their id takes over and they wind up saying incredibly insulting things about the people they were trying to butter up when that was the daily talking point.
ruemara
At least we’re not deporting them for being too handsome.
Redshirt
@David Koch:
Freakin’ work of art. Bravo, you bold Koch Brother!
Redshirt
@Johnny Coelacanth: Good for you for braving the Freep. Again, we all should be reading that site precisely for these kind of insights. It’s a look directly into the Wingnut Hive Mind as it formulates today’s absolute beliefs.
Also, you gave me the wicked cool visual of Heaven sending drones down to Hell to survey the Brimstone Pits. Gotta stay informed!
Suffern ACE
@ruemara: I love that story. Makes me want to go there to see how I measure up on the dangerously attractive scale. I’d be hurt if they allowed me to stay.
JWL
@Redshift: Good point, i.e., the monied interests & religious/politico interests have cut a devil’s bargain.
Wall Street however remains the tail that wags both the republican and democratic party dogs.
Forum Transmitted Disease
The GOP will pass nothing. If possible, not until 2016.
Rich C.
I’m surprised no one has mentioned the other movie with Django in the title that Tarantino was in: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sukiyaki_Western_Django
It has positively grotesque levels of violence.