(Tom Toles via GoComics.com)
On the glass-half-full side, Gail Collins, in the NYTimes:
… Mainstream Republicans have been super-energized to do immigration reform ever since the Hispanic vote went against them in the last election. Democracy does work. If somebody came up with a dramatic poll showing that all the people with diabetes, asthma and chronic back problems had voted against Mitt Romney, there would no longer be a problem getting funding for health care reform.
High points in the committee’s long slog toward passage included a proposal from Tea Party icon Mike Lee of Utah to exempt employers of “cooks, waiters, butlers, housekeepers, governesses, maids, valets, baby sitters, janitors, laundresses, furnacemen, caretakers, handymen, gardeners, foot- men, grooms, and chauffeurs of automobiles for family use” from checking to make sure their help had the proper legal status. It didn’t go anywhere, but if you happen to run into Lee, feel free to say: “The butler did it.”
The most painful low point in the committee’s deliberations came at the end, when the Democrats gave up on an amendment allowing same-sex spouses the same right as heterosexuals to apply for permanent resident status for their partners. It’s not every day when you hear a senator announce that he had decided to support a move that involved “rank discrimination.” But the Republicans who were needed to get an immigration bill through the Senate had made it supremely clear that if any hint of gay marriage entered the legislation, they were going to take their toys and go home.
Decide for yourself how you feel about this one, people. Stand up for equality or finally get a major bill through the Senate? Defend equality or cave in and hope that the Supreme Court bails you out when it rules on the Defense of Marriage Act next month? …
Ed Kilgore, at the Washington Monthly, is less sanguine:
… Meanwhile, despite the announcement last Friday that the House Gang of Eight had reached an “agreement in principle” on its own immigration bill, nothing has actually been released, and now it appears a draft provision banning any government assistance for newly legalized immigrants in securing health care could endanger Democratic support, particularly outside the Gang.
So don’t get your hopes up on immigration reform just yet, even if Republican congressional leaders keep insisting it’s the one subject they won’t forget about no matter how central Scandalmania becomes to their overall political message.
Comrade Nimrod Humperdink
I wouldn’t be shocked to see a bill eke its way through the Senate. It has the Chamber of Commerce Seal of Approval. Getting anything through the House, however, is another beast entirely. If the Human Screwdriver (he ain’t no Hammer) crams something through by violating the Hastert rule, break out the popcorn
NotMax
This word “reform” that they use…
/Princess Bride
Patricia Kayden
“a draft provision banning any government assistance for newly legalized immigrants in securing health care”
Why shouldn’t newly legalized immigrants get access to health care? And Senate Dems shouldn’t have caved in on the same sex issue. Disappointing.
Schlemizel
@Patricia Kayden:
Forget it. If the bill has approval from the clown car of 8 its a useless piece of crap that will only do half the job and do it exceedingly poorly. Hoping for anything of actual value from them is pointless.
Then there is the whole thing about Dems caving . . . where have you been the last 40 years?
WereBear
The recent behavior of Congressional Republicans is right out of the Abusive Parents handbook:
Aimai
If the legislation goes through immigrants are no worse off and may yet be better off when a better senate and congress come along. Or when equal protection kicks in. This is the original SS law writ large. Imperfect but a first step.
David Koch
Maybe Jane and Grover will put the band back together again and go tour to KILL THE BILL!
WereBear
@Aimai: While I have nothing against compromise, we are in the classic tire rims and anthrax position. Republicans will come up with a bill that anyone who dodges enough machine gun bullets gets to apply for citizenship, and then crow, “We passed Immigration Reform!”
Of course, the citizens affected aren’t going to be fooled.
David Koch
Somethings never change.
if you guys were around in 1964 you would have called the Civil Rights Act a cave because it didn’t include voting rights, nor women’s rights, nor interracial marriage.
And you know what, that’s what happened. When the CRA was introduced it was denounced by the NAACP as “not worth the paper it’s printed on. The Kennedy administration has compromised its integrity… a policy of compromise and retreat in the matter of Negro rights. ..there is no question that there would be a large Negro defection in the South. The Republican party is beginning to make large gains throughout the South, and even if Goldwater runs, there will be a significant Negro Republican vote.”
*
you can almost hear the echo of “don’t vote, stay home, teach
obummerKennedy a lesson”.John S.
@Aimai:
That will not satisfy the Veruca Salt wing of the Democratic Party, and I expect to see full-on tantrums from the likes of Greenwald. He especially will take personal umbrage since a) he doesn’t need a good reason to bash Obama and b) this cave on same sex rights personally affects him and his Brazilian partner. And it’s always about him.
Progressive change isn’t good enough.They don’t care how, they want it now.
Va Highlander
Speaking of foreigners, I’ve learned that facebook can teach one to dislike not just family members and former schoolmates and acquaintances but people on the other side of the world, as well.
I got invited to a private group called, “Americans and Muslims can be friends”, and despite always being very sympathetic to Islam and Islamic culture, generally, my sympathy has nearly evaporated and is being rapidly replaced by something close to contempt. Turns out that Islam has as many or more god-bothering, condescending, wilfully ignorant assholes as fundamentalist Christianity, with an added layer of reflexive anti-American resentment, 911 truthism, and various Satanic conspiracy theories for good measure.
It’s so bad that, falling prey to the conspiracy-mongering myself, I sometimes wonder whether the whole thing is actually intended to turn westerners against Islam. And being liberal, I naturally just end up hating myself for it.
mai naem(mobile)
I don’t mean to sound like I’m treating the gays like non entities but more than likely DOMA is going to be struck down so the gay couples is a non issue for me and I think the media is making a big deal out of it because it looks like the dems are hippie punching. I have yet to hear doma affecting this in any msm story.
cvstoner
If somebody came up with a dramatic poll showing that all the people with diabetes, asthma and chronic back problems had voted against Mitt Romney, there would no longer be a problem getting funding for health care reform.
That may be so, but you can expect that the Republicans would still be negotiating in bad faith, as they always will.
Comrade Nimrod Humperdink
@WereBear: God I started matching Dick Armey’s cranky old mug with that dialogue, or that old spliced comedy interview where Jesse Helms “makes” a little girl cry and then laughs at her…
cvstoner
@Aimai: If the legislation goes through immigrants are no worse off and may yet be better off when a better senate and congress come along.
There will never be a “better senate and congress.” This is as good as it will ever get.
Todd
@John S.:
It’s stuff like this that makes me distrust manic progressives – their quest to rush headlong into policy makes me distrust policy, and their hyperbolic embracement of figures like Mumia, Manning, Schwartz, Assange, Kucinich, Greenwald and Nader lead me to question the policies themselves.
One of the reasons why I am an Obot is that I perceive him as conservatively progressive – I think it is a function of our demographic, as we’ve been so screwed and excluded by boomers, both conservative and tote bagging.
cvstoner
@Va Highlander: It’s so bad that, falling prey to the conspiracy-mongering myself, I sometimes wonder whether the whole thing is actually intended to turn westerners against Islam. And being liberal, I naturally just end up hating myself for it.
This has been going on for a couple thousand years, so don’t hate yourself.
Comrade Nimrod Humperdink
@Va Highlander: Pat Robertson and Ayman al Zawahiri would agree on almost everything except what to call their God. Fuck fundamentalists, all of them. Their gods not only aren’t my gods, they aren’t the gods of any decent person on this planet. What kind of fucked up universe has their vision of a deity calling the shots, anyway?
cvstoner
@Todd: “conservatively progressive”: now that’s an oxymoron if I have ever heard one!
If you want to move to the left, then you need people from the far left screaming to make it happen. Of course they’ll never be happy, but so what? It takes a lot of energy to overcome the conservative lizard brain, and without their input, we would just keep drifting to the right.
The main difference between the Republicans and the Democrats is that at least the Republicans have the good sense to keep the disdain for their energetic fringe behind closed doors.
Cassidy
@cvstoner:
Only enough to cycle the next round.
raven
Torrential rain in OK.
Suffern ACE
Ok. I doubt anything will pass but I do want what passes to at least improve what we have now. I can’t tell if this senate bill changes anything from the status quo except undocumented laborers who can prove x? in ten years will be eligible for a green card. I’m not certain what x is. I think that may be an improvement. What else changes?
Va Highlander
@cvstoner:
I just feel…I don’t know…dirty. Or, worse, that I’m turning into my Foxbot parents.
@Comrade Nimrod Humperdink:
That’s the really creepy thing. There are a few Christian fundamentalists in the group that have no problem whatsoever making nicey-nicey with the Islamic fundamentalists. I think there may be only one or two beleaguered secularists in the whole group and one hand-wringing Quaker gently scolding the secularists about their language and tone, lest they insult our Muslim friends. He keeps insisting that we all need to be nice and learn about each other’s culture.
Well, we are, just not the lessons he intends. For instance, I now know that the penalty for apostasy is death, at least in those Muslim countries where they can get away with that sort of thing. Yet we are constantly told that Islam is a religion of peace and that the Quran forbids all killing.
Argh!
Todd
@cvstoner:
The problem is in the details. When good policy dictates the construction of infrastructure, financial regulation, campaign finance reform and affirmative action, a far left that lionizes Mumia, demands understanding and kindness for murdering robbers, defends Neo-Nazis like Matthew Hale and coddles people who piss and shit on city streets while aggressively panhandling is unlikely to achieve those goals.
Cassidy
@Va Highlander: Take heart in knowing that RW Christianity is no different and would happily put people to death if they could install the RW Theocracy they desperately want. We are one Santorum away.
Va Highlander
@Cassidy: Indeed. It’s an uncomfortable reminder of why we fight. It also reminds me just how much I love my country and the ideals on which it was founded, however far short we fall from achieving them.
raven
The report from the city surveyor indicates no easement on the sewer line so now it’s back to the water and sewer engineer to see what they have to say. We got drenched last night so the grading wouldn’t be happening anyway.
Poopyman
@Cassidy: Pretty much. It’s all about power and the leverage to get it. Religion is just a tool they employ to get it.
Thugs are thugs everywhere.
Chyron HR
@cvstoner:
That doesn’t really work when what they’re screaming is, “Impeach the tyrant Obama,” or any other slogan that would fit in at a Tea Party rally.
Poopyman
Radar’s turning very red over Central Oklahoma again.
ETA from NWS:
Suffern ACE
@Todd: ok. But for immigration reform, what exactly do the far leftists wish to accomplish that is impossible? I thought it was some kind of path to citizenship with penalties for employers. Or is there some kind of leftist position on immigration reform that involves mumia and neo-nazi civil rights that I’ve missed?
raven
We were discussing the nationality of the London murders yesterday, looks like Michael Adebolajo is Nigerian.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
@Schlemizel:
It’s easy for someone who isn’t personally affected to say “forget it, not good enough”. This bill will directly affect someone very close to me and make their life a hell of a lot easier. I feel like shit knowing that there will still be others who are just beyond the bill’s relief. As the President says, must we always make perfect the enemy of good? The Republicans always pull that play whether it is about global warming (costs too much, it’s too late, etc) or gun control laws (criminals will still get guns). When both sides take that position, more people suffer. I don’t want anybody to suffer, but I will settle for less people suffering and hope to make it better for the rest as soon as I can.
Va Highlander
@raven:
That was my guess, when I saw the pix, yesterday. In our small-world department, it was a Christian Nigerian friend that invited me to this Muslim group. I got the impression he’d had quite enough of the propaganda.
Todd
@raven:
The bastard probably sent me an email and owes me money, dammit.
Comrade Nimrod Humperdink
@Va Highlander: I’m sure Islam is a religion of peace in responsible hands. When a winger gets all lathered about the suicide bomber ‘cult of death,’ it makes me wonder if the reason they choose that language is their own embrace of the Rapture. Aside from all the ass-backwards crap relating to women and sex and whether or not to eat shellfish, the core problem with the fundamentalist mentality for me is the hostile rejection of any separation between church and state. I couldn’t handle living in a place where one was also the other. That outlook is simply incompatible with living in a place like the US. When a hard core Bible thumper screams about taking their country back, I just think “you never had it.” Not nearly to the extent they want it, anyway.
Poopyman
Dammit, the dew point has been hovering around 70F for a couple of days now, here in Tidewater MD. As per usual, summer arrived before Memorial Day. Last night I traumatized the community by wearing shorts to the grocery store.
Va Highlander
@Comrade Nimrod Humperdink: In many ways, Islam is indeed a religion of peace. I have no doubts about that.
A former employer’s father worked for Aramco and this fellow both spent his childhood in Saudi Arabia and returned there to work for Aramco for some years as an adult. He said that the Magic Kingdom was the most peaceful place on earth. Not only was there no violent crime, there was no crime to speak of at all. The entire society is organized around politeness and, basically, sharia law is just an extension of that principle. It keeps the peace like no other system but you can do hard time for a pound of bacon or possessing a Christmas tree, lose a hand for stealing, or be beheaded for converting from Islam to some other faith.
He told me that the Arabs are generally pacifists and really some of the nicest people you’d care to know. Islam is effectively an encoding of these ideals. It works but at a hell of a price.
gene108
@Va Highlander:
If the heart of Catholicism is in Italy, the heart of Islam is Saudi Arabia.
Look at the how much more socially progressive Italy is versus Saudi Arabia.
In short, there are plenty of places, where Muslims are far more backwards socially than anything in Christiandom. It shouldn’t surprise anyone that there are plenty of Muslims with very backwards views on society.
raven
@Va Highlander: Yea, they crucified a couple of dudes just the other day.
Shakezula
Adjusted for THIS reality.
raven
@Va Highlander: My link got modded. Apparently a certain way of execution is a keyword.
jeffreyw
Deja Voodoo
raven
@jeffreyw: You might like this goofy “Cat Beard” thing.
Va Highlander
@gene108:
Agreed on all points. Curiously, a somewhat secular leaning Muslim told me this in so many words, that many Muslims were backward and I should just get over it.
@raven: Good lord…
Not at all surprising, really, and as gene108 notes the Magic Kingdom is indeed the beating heart of al Islam. This was sort of what spear-headed a push-back by western secularists. Some Brit started asking Islamic god-botherers about fitrah and the penalty for apostasy. Most wisely crawfished away from the questions and then finally someone blurted out the truth. Comity has deteriorated a bit since then.
Chris
@Va Highlander:
Not to be a prick, but – that surprised you? I have at least as much beef with Muslim fanatics as the Christian kind, and any look at the regimes in place in the Middle East and the public opinion polls that come out of it will reveal that they’re nowhere close to being an endangered species.
The Republic of Stupidity
Actually, I suspect Republicans would continue to block health care reform and simply hope that as many of that particular group – diabetics, asthmatics & chronic back painters – die as quickly as possible… thereby eliminating the need for future reforms…
schrodinger's cat
No hat tip? I think I mentioned the passage of the immigration bill with elebenty amendments in a couple of threads yesterday. FWIW, I think the passage of this bill will be difficult, I give it a very small probability of passing.
Va Highlander
@Chris:
Intellectually, no, at least not in retrospect. It was quite a shock to my vaunted multi-cultural sensibilities, though.
ETA: I think what shocked me most were the conspiracy theories and how they were used to support prejudice against Jews and the US, while simultaneously exonerating al Qaeda. The only other two positions I noted, with regard to 911, were that no real Muslim would do such a thing, so obviously the perpetrators were not real Muslims, and silence on the issue.
Chris
@Va Highlander:
There are plenty of Muslims who will talk freedom of religion, tolerance, peace and reconciliation out of one corner of their mouths, while supporting the most oppressive measures imaginable against whoever they see as violating their religion, and, when you object, will tell you that you’re being intolerant towards them. It’s the same basic principle as Southerners (or any of our conservatives, really) bitching that the Fed’ral Gub’mint is oppressing them when it tells them not to practice slavery, segregation, wage slavery, or whatever.
You might like this article about Islamophobia, by the way – http://www.opendemocracy.net/5050/meredith-tax/unpacking-idea-of-%E2%80%9Cislamophobia%E2%80%9D-0#.UZpYcDp4GTk.facebook. Got it a few day ago from a Lebanese friend (born Muslim, now atheist).
schrodinger's cat
@Va Highlander: The feeling of victim hood, of being put upon even when they are in the majority, is what is common among extremists and their apologists, it does not matter whether they are Christian, Islamic or Hindu fundamentalists.
Nancy Irving
Footmen? Did he actually say footmen? I didn’t think even Mitt Romney had footmen anymore.
I must travel in the wrong circles.
gene108
@Va Highlander:
I know an Indian guy, who worked in Saudi Arabia for a short period of time. He was out and about, when the Call to Prayer was going on and not being Muslim continued walking about town.
He was stopped by police and had to prove he wasn’t Muslim and thus not breaking the law by not praying.
******************************
The problem in the U.S. is our right-wingers want to use Islamic right-wingers as a basis to deny rights to non-right-winger Muslims. There’s a point of time, when we have to say despite someone being ‘other’ and parts of the ‘other’ aren’t palatable to us, we cannot lump everyone into the same pot.
I think that really is the only argument that needs to be made in the U.S. about Islam.
beergoggles
No way the house republicans will let this pass with or without the gays. In the meantime the democrats did a good job alienating plenty of gays by supporting discrimination.
The republicans must be laughing so hard at making democrats treat their biggest supporters like shit.
gene108
@schrodinger’s cat:
One thing I note is there’s not immediate increase in funding for hiring more people in USCIS as one of the key provisions. Already overwhelmed government agency getting more work thrown on it isn’t a good recipe for successful implementation of any law.
In a nutshell, Green Cards, work visas and naturalization papers don’t magically appear; a government worker has to push those papers through the proper legal loops, before they are issue and you can allocate as many changes as you want, but as long as there aren’t more people pushing the increase in paper work, you will have problems like the IRS is experiencing with 501c4 groups.
schrodinger's cat
@gene108: I knew a contractor who was Muslim, he had taken up a gig in Saudi Arabia when he was younger because it was lucrative. He ended up hating it even though the money was good and couldn’t wait to get out of Saudi Arabia, he found it too stifling.
schrodinger's cat
@gene108: Yes that is bad, USCIS is perpetually overwhelmed and overworked, this bill will increase their workload exponentially.
gene108
@Cassidy:
We are a long way away from a Saudi Arabia / Taliban / or even Iran style theocracy.
The Protestant Reformation created enough divisions in Christianity that even a Christian state would have to recognize something as being ‘other’ and valid. Even when this country was founded and prior to the 14th Amendment, when states did have religious qualifications for holding office or voting, America still gave some space for Native Americans to practice their own religion*.
In Saudi Arabia you can’t openly practice any other religion and may not be able to bring in religious items that are considered idolatry.
*Yes, I know the general treatment of Native Americans was/is poor and attempts at converting them to Christianity were made, but most of the really nasty stuff was done for land and territorial expansion and not in the name of religion. We still have people trying to reconnect to Native religious practices now, with things like sweat lodges.
gene108
@schrodinger’s cat:
I really think immigration reform is more a mad push by politicians to grab the Latino vote, than actually thinking through the ways in which the system doesn’t work for both immigrants and Americans.
Va Highlander
@Chris:
Bingo! That’s exactly what I’m seeing. Thanks much for the link.
@schrodinger’s cat: Yes, exactly so! Time after time, I see these folks lead with the victim card. They don’t even seem conscious of doing it.
@gene108:
I agree and unfortunately it is all too easily done. Right-winger Muslims are almost enough to turn a secular humanist like me against all Muslims. It takes effort to resist the temptation.
I see no reason to keep them out, as a matter of policy, or to view Muslims generally with suspicion. There are plenty of peaceful and tolerant practicing Islam here in the US as well as abroad. As always, we battle categorical thinking. It’s not easy.
Suffern ACE
@beergoggles: In the real world, I’m not getting much in the way of “outrage” from the normal parties on that. There is a question of whether or not it would make a difference until DOMA is repealed and while you may be right – that the bill is doomed to fail so why not load it up with symbolic measures to help advance some kind of message – I don’t want my group to be the one that gets blamed for it passing.
Citizen_X
@Comrade Nimrod Humperdink:
Feature, not bug.
Mnemosyne
@Va Highlander:
Right-wing Christians have certainly managed that same trick for a lot of people in the West so, like you, I suspect it’s a problem with right-wingers/fundamentalists of all stripes, not ones from a specific religion.
JoyfulA
@gene108: I learned when I was doorknocking to update streetlists that apparently all Asians are Democrats, including Muslims, and I had no idea of all the Asians who live in my vicinity.
There are many kinds of Muslims, just like there are many kinds of Christians. One big mistake the US made was in not flooding South Asia with elementary schools a couple of decades ago because the Saudis funded thousands of them, teaching Wahhabi extremism as well as reading, writing, and arithmetic.
A large number around here are a sort of “heretic” Muslim denomination, as I understand it. Their city mosque (on the same block as a synagogue) is expanding by building another in the suburbs. They are very civic-minded, involved in generic fund-raisers and with their own section of highway to keep tidy.
I find the diversity interesting and attractive. Although having a Pat Roberts type imam blaming me as an other for causing natural disasters and insisting I’m going to hell could shake the enchantment.
beergoggles
@Suffern ACE: I”ve lost a couple of close friends to the UK and NZ because their partners couldn’t get their visas renewed to stay in the US so it affects me indirectly. But for the most part you’re right – the majority of gays don’t really care one way or another on the immigration issue because their ox isn’t the one being gored.
Patricia Kayden
@David Koch: Actually, I hope that an immigration bill passes. I’m just disappointed with what had to be done to get it passed (same sex couples not protected, no health care for new immigrants). I agree with you that something is better than nothing, but wish the Dems would fight harder. Why not force the Repubs to unreasonably refuse to pass an immigration bill with everything in it first and then cave later?
Suffern ACE
@beergoggles: I am not saying that the issue is inconsequntial. But it also seems like one that can be fixed if DOMA is repealed. One that would require a major immigration reform to pass first. What to do about 11 million undocumented laborers and residents, resolving that issue, is the larger issue that requires some major reforms. One that needs to be handled carefully so that we don’t end up with a permanent class of undocumented labor. Also, what to do about the current above the board immigration – who gets in and who doesn’t. I’m fine with waiting until that framework is defined and then figuring out how we are going to work going forward before declaring the proposals hopelessly unjust and seriously flawed.
Chris
@gene108:
Saudi Arabia and Taliban Afghanistan are basket cases even by Muslim/Middle Eastern standards. Most Muslim countries including Iran do allow at least some other groups to practice their religions. The specifics vary from country to country – religious groups are generally allowed to practice but not to proselytize, some religious groups may be allowed to practice while others are not (e.g. Christian vs Bahai), and the treatment of those groups who tend to get screwed under any religion – gay people, uppity women, not to mention atheists – is generally pretty bad.
Also worth noting that Islam, at least the Sunni majority, has been “Protestant” since forever – there’s no equivalent to the Vatican or the Papacy, the glue holding the religion together is the holy book and not any church, there are many different schools of thought, and you get awakenings every now and then that come along and say “yeah, we’ve strayed and completely fucked everything up, we must return to the pure form of our religion.” As with Protestantism in many places, though, groupthink consensus can achieve the same oppression as a repressive hierarchy.
schrodinger's cat
@Chris: All true and the Shia-Sunni schism is at least as wide the Catholic-Protestant divide.
Va Highlander
@schrodinger’s cat: Much wider, I should think. The war between Mother Church and dissenters went more-or-less cold some time ago. The war between Sunni and Shia is still very hot in several locations.