And for Marco Rubio’s next trick…
Because of course this was inevitable. Now he’ll remain Very Serious On Immigration Reform, but the bill’s failure won’t be his fault when it doesn’t meet his exacting standards, and now none of the House Republicans have to go on record when this all crashes in flames.
Additional points for Blame Obama.
Fin. Exeunt all.
NickT
Cue David Brooks to explain that the principled immigration reformer is driven by Burkean modesty to vote against his own bill because we cannot know what the future might not hold and in any case there’s an interesting study which shows that immigration bills have the best effect on society once they have been rejected by wise white men.
Hill Dweller
This half-wit was being out-flanked by Paul and Cruz on immigration, hurting his wingnut cred.
Regardless of his vote on immigration, Rubio will never be President.
NickT
@Hill Dweller:
You’d think Rubio would get tired of stepping on his own rusty pitchfork, wouldn’t you?
Hunter Gathers
Rubio’s run in 2016 will make T-Paw’s campaign look like a marathon. This guy is gonna drop out before that stupid Iowa straw poll. This guy is a capital W wuss.
danimal
While it is disappointing to watch immigration reform get killed by conservatives (again), the GOP’s very public bait and switch should solidify Hispanic support for Dems in overwhelming numbers for years to come.
Viva Blue Texas!
cmorenc
Rubio’s maneuvering is all about trying to have his cake and eat it too in positioning himself for 2016. In case he does win the nomination, he has to seem to be strongly *for* immigration reform, in order to preserve his supposed chances of luring enough Latino votes back to the ‘R’ column to have a chance to win the general election. However, to win the nomination, he has to play to the immigration-phobic xenophobes in his own party who are deeply resistant to any immigration law changes that truly expands the chances for Spanish-speaking illegals to gain legal residency or citizenship, beyond “don’t deport my maid or yard maintenance people”.
Meanwhile, he’s hoping most of the electorate (beyond the hard-core wingers and hard-core progressives who closely monitor this stuff in real-time)…aren’t really paying attention, and all he has to do to satisfy most of them he’s on-board with immigration reform is to keep his Cuban-spanish surname and membership in the “Gang of Eight” who are supposedly the driving force pushing an immigration bill through Congress.
NickT
@danimal:
We might even get bonus points for their rejection of conservative Hispanic token manchild Marco Rubey-oh.
Roger Moore
Cleek’s law strikes again!
piratedan
another example of never let the imperfect be the enemy of the never implemented or something something headless bodies in the desert.
pokeyblow
I just hope he stays hydrated.
shortstop
Fantastic post title.
NickT
Looks like we might have to update the snake eating its own ass from an ouroboros to an orubioboros.
Amir Khalid
Who does this guy think he is, Rufus T. Firefly?
Skipjack
I don’t know that it will fail in the Senate, but I think it would be extra-sweet if he votes against it and it passes the Senate without him. He’ll catch the blame from the usual quarters for giving life to the thing in the first place, and no credit from people he needs. If the House passes something it will be because the Republicans needed this all along and Rubio’s grandstanding doesn’t matter. If it fails in the House, Rubio might minimize damage but that’s all there is to that. The key has always been the House, though it’s true they won’t move without the Senate first.
But the truth is the Republicans are in a tight spot with this, they can’t just blow it up now without sharp consequences. It might not deter them but Rubio seems to be posturing with this statement,he’s damned either way and had better angle for some credit.
cmorenc
@NickT:
Nice try at hyperbolic parody of David Brooks, but it’s only very slightly more difficult to write parody distinguishable from that man’s actual work than it is to write a parody of Tom Friedman (which practically writes itself). If you’re patient a few more weeks or months, Brooks is going to write a longer version of what you just wrote, with a few more pop-sociological points included which Brooks pulls straight out of his ass.
cmorenc
@NickT:
Nice try at hyperbolic parody of David Brooks, but it’s only very slightly more difficult to write parody distinguishable from that man’s actual work than it is to write a parody of Tom Friedman (which practically writes itself). If you’re patient a few more weeks or months, Brooks is going to write a longer version of what you just wrote, with a few more pop-sociological points included which Brooks pulls straight out of his ass.
NickT
@cmorenc:
Sure, but why wait to embarrass the enemy? Get your mockery in first, say I.
piratedan
@NickT: well that poo isn’t going to fling itself, is it?
jonas
cmorenc is pretty much right, I think. Rubio came out of the gate thinking this bill was going to make him the 2016 frontrunner because he would rescue the Hispanic vote for the GOP and he’d position himself as a “sane” Republican. Thanks for playing, Marco. He’s since found out the hard way that all roads to 2016 lead directly through the center of Krazyville, where a Latino guy calling for immigration reform is going to find himself run out of town on a rail. Remember how Herman Cain was briefly on top in the last GOP primary after suggesting something like guard towers with lasers to vaporize migrants or something?
Marmot
Nice title!
Forum Transmitted Disease
@jonas: Those were good times, the GOP had their own black guy that was going to destroy the Democrat party and leave us sobbing in the dirt and begging our wealthy betters for forgiveness.
Then it turned out he had a thing for the white women and that was the end of Herman. The modern GOP won’t put up with that miscegenation shit.
MsInformed
@Hill Dweller:And neither will Paul or Cruz.
NickT
@Forum Transmitted Disease:
Although we did get to hear more about CrappyPizzaaMogulMan’s Whine Whine Whine plan.
SatanicPanic
@Amir Khalid: If you think the bill is bad right now just wait til he gets through with it.
Alex S.
Was he their con-man to show that the republicans really, really want immigration reform, but alas, they simply couldn’t support any bill?
BGinCHI
So this is their strategy to court the Hispanic vote?
Oh, I get it: if you are going to shit on Hispanics, make sure the turds come out of a Cuban ass.
pokeyblow
@Forum Transmitted Disease: Why do you say “democrat party?”
Are you some kind of republican plant?
Yatsuno
@Alex S.: It will be the fault of the Democrats/Obama/hippies/teh realracists/wingnut enemy du jour. They just COULDN’T do it and it was all their fault! If they’d just shut up and let the rich white men run things like Jeebus wrote in the Bible…
Suffern ACE
So basically no path to citizenship unitl the Mexicans prove that not a single one has arrived with a work visa or never ever thought of such a thing. And for that, we get a very business friendly immigration policy that issues temporary visas, which will pretty much ensure violations unless immigrants are followed around constantly. Yipee.
ericblair
Rubio can sit over with Senator Turtle, who is such a badass he vetoed his own bill just to watch it die.
Ash Can
I’m inclined to agree with the sentiment that Rubio saw his wacko-hater-wingnut (i.e., GOP base) support faltering and felt he had to change course. I don’t think that fucking up the immigration deal will do any damage to the GOP’s cred with Latino voters, though. You can’t damage something that doesn’t exist. Republican and right-wing leaders of various backgrounds have been popping up in the headlines with some regularity over the months since Boy Genius Reince Priebus announced the GOP’s Grand Rebranding Initiative, each saying “Fuck the browns, Reince, we need more whites.” I think that at this point your average Jose-in-the-street (non-Cuban) Hispanic voter would stop dead and stare in slack-jawed amazement if the GOP ever made any real progress whatsoever in the direction of immigration reform.
NickT
@Ash Can:
IIRC, Obama actually won the Cuban American vote last time around – which was unexpected, to say the least.
Zifnab
@MsInformed: What’s not to love about Ted Cruz? He’s got all the southern charm of Tom Tancredo and all the Ivy League credentials of George Bush Jr. The man knows how to work a crowd AND he’s got a Latino-ish last name if you squint and try not to think about it too hard.
The man is a shoe-in for President! A shoe-in, I tell you. The only way he could lose is if there was an outrageous amount of ACORN voter fraud.
KG
you know, for all the preening about how we are the best country in the whole world (USAUSAUSAUSAUSA) and how everyone wants to be us or come here and all that jazz… it is rather entertaining to watch them turn around and tell people they can’t come here.
But then I’m pretty much an open borders kind of guy. Yet another reason I couldn’t stay a Republican.
maya
Republican ticket for 2016:
Eastwood / Chair
Ash Can
@NickT: Now that you mention it, yes, I remember that. Yet more evidence of the changing demographics in this country — the younger generations of Cuban-Americans don’t have the anti-Communist vitriol of the older generations, they see themselves as more American than Cuban, and they don’t see the sense of fighting a battle that ended before many of their parents were born. So why would they vote for some Anglo schmuck whose only effort at Hispanic outreach is mouthing platitudes about how nasty some bearded guy on his deathbed was to their ancestors?
Forum Transmitted Disease
@pokeyblow: You have no idea. I have a tattoo of Mount Rushmore where all four faces are replaced by Reagan’s on my heart. Not on the skin over my heart, mind you. I flew to Thailand (had to, the operation’s not legal here) and had my chest cracked and had the tattoo actually placed on my heart. It was done with a special ink that shows up on x-rays, so all those liberal democrat doctors can see it and pee their pants in awe over what an awesome Patriot I am.
Suck on that, lieberal puke, and may Gawd Bless Amercia.
Yatsuno
@maya: The debates would be epic…
Paul in KY
@ericblair: in Reno no less.
Mandalay
@cmorenc:
No doubt, but he has seriously screwed his chances by picking the wrong battle. If the immigration bill pleases Hispanics it will piss of the Tea Party, and vice versa. And he looks like a dithering idiot to those just watching from the sidelines .
However pure and honorable his original intentions may have been (and I’m not even convinced of that), selecting immigration as a cause was politically naive and risky. Cruz will end up using Rubio as an asswipe.
dedc79
All seems to be part of a pattern. Didn’t McCain propose a cap-and-trade climate change bill and then turn around and vote against it a few years later?
NickT
@Mandalay:
If an asswipe uses an asswipe as asswipe, is that double-meta-asswipery or asswipery cubed?
Paul in KY
@NickT: Meta-asswipery squared?
I’m not the best at math. Ask me a question I can BS.
BGinCHI
@NickT: The answer is -1.
pokeyblow
@Forum Transmitted Disease: I admire your commitment.
Hoodie
@dedc79: Yep. This was the most obvious place for the GOP to make “reforms” and, if this is where the base of the GOP is, they may go further down the rabbit hole in 2016. 2016 may even be a bigger freakshow than 2012, with Rand Paul and Ted Cruz filling in for Ron Paul and Rick Perry, i.e., new and improved with 50% more assholery,and no Romney to cover it over with money.
Another Halocene Human
@NickT: Not really, if you knew any Cuban Americans.
Generational demographics, just like with white folks and glbt issues.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Forum Transmitted Disease: I was going to be straightforward and say you were trying to sound Republican, but your way works too.
Another Halocene Human
@Ash Can: Their grandparents were HAPPY to be (coddled) foreigners because they were the ruling class in exile. The youngs of today see how they’re excluded in a myriad of subtle ways from the American society they call their own, and, you know, they’ve figured out which side their bread is buttered on … or in some cases they ignored the racism for a while when W was all “I’m your best friend, low taxes y’all” but the open racism since Obama was elected is just making the GOP a tough sell. Look, you grow up in this country, you don’t want anyone treating you as other or foreign. And that’s why that GOP outreach dude quit.
Plus, don’t forget Florida has the “wrong” kind of Cubans (Rubio’s familia incluyada!!!) as well… you know, the old communists from the cigar factories. Some of them probably went Reagan Republican but I can’t imagine all of them did.
I think (based on some of the buttholes I know at work) a lot has to do with whether you internalize the racism (“people would treat me good if it weren’t for those fucking Puerto Ricans!”) or , ya know, blame the crackers for their idiocy (“you wouldn’t believe the fuckin’ bullshit I had to take when I moved here, assholes!”). Think like the dichotomy between Jews who fight anti-semitism and Jews who blame other Jews (Israeli Jews, ultra-orthodox, Russian Jews, etc, etc).
Btw, a lot of Cubans actually are descended from Native Americans from … Florida. People went back and forth between the island and the peninsula for centuries, and they haven’t stopped. Just infused with Spanish and African flavor.
The Other Chuck
@NickT:
It’s more like a M.C. Escher drawing, “Asses wiping asses”
kindness
Regarding Rubio…The Derp is strong with this one.
NickT
@Another Halocene Human:
Remind me which party the majority of Cuban Americans have voted for over the last 30 years. Oh yes, that’s right, the GOP. That’s why it was a SUPRISE (yes, an unexpected event!) when they went for Obama last time around.
Another Halocene Human
@Mandalay: Florida GOP. That’s all you need to know.
They keep power through gerrymandering (witness the shenanigans post-Fair District, what bullshit), voter suppression, the incandescent power of racism, and the fact that the Florida Democratic Party is a shithole of grifters, backstabbers, thieves, and self-satisfied limousine liberals who don’t care if the masses of Florida’s poor burn.
Also, too, the national Dem party is totally useless. Winning a spread out rural district that is not well organized takes $$$, and these folks won’t bother. These counties aren’t really getting the representation they deserve. They get what the big banks and big chem companies buy for them.
Another Halocene Human
@NickT: I don’t know where you live, but nobody I know was surprised. The GOP voters have been literally dying. Upper class twits do enjoy a longer lifespan, but all bitter things must and do come to an end.
max
@BGinCHI: So this is their strategy to court the Hispanic vote?
Well, that’s always been their strategy: ‘Vote Republican, you dumb greaser.’
Oh, I get it: if you are going to shit on Hispanics, make sure the turds come out of a Cuban ass.
The reason the bill was moving at all on the R side was because Chamber of Commerce types want serfs. They want the cheapest labor they can get, and if it don’t vote or get benefits, that’s even better. They just want not to get into legal trouble for it. And R politicians want what rich guys want. Everything else anybody else said on the R side was smoke. The ideal immigration bill for them was one that imported poor Mexicans who got nothing but deported if they acted up and also retroactively repealed the 1986 amnesty bill.
max
[‘Plantation owners were always in favor of importing more slaves or conquering foreign nations like Haiti and enslaving the entire country. They just wanted to make sure that the Yankees could never set the slaves free.’]
Roger Moore
@KG:
Just because they want to be here doesn’t mean we’re going to let them in. Half the fun of being in an exclusive club is telling Those People to fuck off when they ask to become members.
PaulW
Rubio thinks he can put his own gun to his own head and trick the townfolk that he’s got himself hostage.
Mandalay
@Another Halocene Human:
This.
Younger members of Cuban families don’t really give a shit either way about Castro, and what happened over 50 years ago. But they do care about current Republican attitudes towards Hispanics.
Rubio may have a Hispanic background, but his support for Hispanics is distinctly lukewarm. And he’s an anti-Castro Cuban, and the privilege that group enjoys in the US is actually resented by other Hispanics (and also by Haitians living in the US).
? Martin
Well, of course we have to blame Obama. He’s a minority, and he’s obviously predisposed to crime, so obviously it’s his fault.
JPL
@? Martin: You too could have been appointed to a federal court, if Bush had known your true feelings.
Rubio would be considered a minority also, in these times.
catclub
@pokeyblow: I would have guessed the tattoo would be done in Paraguay or Myanmar. But beside that, Commitment indeed.
Pococurante
@maya: If that’s not an actual bumper sticker… well it should be!
Another Halocene Human
@Mandalay: Actually, he only pretends to come from an anti-Castro family, but, like Herman Cain and his shuck’n’jive in the Southeast, the anti-Castro Cubans more or less shrugged and said they’d take him.
If he were white, he would be bragging about the fact that sus padres were po’ folks.
Rubio is dumb as a box of rocks.
jayjaybear
@pokeyblow:
Nah. That was Reagan.
Another Halocene Human
Ask Rubio about where that Republican donor money went.
Yatsuno
@Another Halocene Human: That would be shrill and uncivil.
? Martin
I think the latino vote is a real conundrum for the GOP. The largest latino voting block is in CA, so winning some of those voters back does fuckall electorally – they’re not getting CA back for some time. In most other states, the latino population is too small to be a reckoning force, so it remains more expedient to shit on them in order to hold onto the chickenshit white vote. So it’s really only in a handful of states that this debate really matters to the GOP – Florida and NC and Virginia in the short term, because they’re such a battleground states. Arizona and Texas in the medium term. And that’s about it. They have to be doing the calculus of whether there are better ways to shore up FL, NC, VA without possibly losing IA and other battlegrounds where latinos aren’t a demographic factor.
Ben Cisco
You guys are killing with the titles today.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@Another Halocene Human:
Điều phải chứng minh
gene108
@Forum Transmitted Disease:
Clarence Thomas disagrees. They tolerate his misogination just fine.
Mandalay
@Another Halocene Human:
He did make the mistake of repeatedly bragging that his parents fled Castro’s Cuba, even though they moved to the US three years before Castro took power.
Way dumber.
Skipjack
One more thing, if we do get an immigration bill passed and signed we’ll all owe Marco Rubio some real thanks. Not just ha ha sucker! thanks, but real thanks. He may be twisting in the wind but he’s trying to do the right thing at huge political risk. For certain he saw the potential reward of carrying this over to the other side of the canyon and now is looking down at his feet and thinking the tightrope keeps shrinking, but he’s carried quite a bit of the load so far. Without someone to go first I just don’t see how the Republicans don’t keep playing their same short term blame Obama on behalf of the rubes and get reelected while long term lose support strategy.
ETA just to be a troll, it’s way bigger than Obama ever risked while a minority party senator with an opposite party white house. Though Bush was such a disaster it was clear that the Ds should wait their turn and make no PR mistakes, nonetheless this takes some balls from Rubio.
catclub
@? Martin: ” they’re not getting CA back for some time.” They blew that latino vote fair and square, and pretty much on purpose. Which Governor basically admitted that? Not Scharzenegger. Deukmeijian? Nope, Pete Wilson.
Roger Moore
@? Martin:
They could if they could win more of the Latino vote. Remember that the size of the Latino vote in California means that a given percent change in their share of it makes a bigger change in statewide results. They could also save themselves from irrelevance at the state level with even a modest increase in the Latino vote. They only need to win a couple more Assembly districts to get above the 1/3 level that would at least let them block tax increases.
David Brooks (not that one)
> Fin. Exeunt all.
Exeunt omnes. Kids these days, no learning.
Jay in Oregon
Over 70 comments and no one mentioned this scene from Blazing Saddles?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_JOGmXpe5I
keestadoll
“And so there’s a handful of Democrats, and a sizeable number of Republicans that are saying to us we’re prepared to do immigration reform, but we have to make sure there isn’t another wave of illegal immigration,” he continued. “So for those who want immigration reform, the task is very simple: Let’s strengthen the border security parts of this bill so that they’re stronger, so that they don’t give overwhelming discretion to the Department of Homeland Security. And I think if we can do that, then you’re going to be able to get something done. But if you can’t, it’s not going to happen.”
From what I understand, this issue was discussed at length when the Gang of Eight was formed (formed itself? whatever). The pitch (and sold) order was: secure the border first to dispatch the notion that this would be a repeat of the 1986 amnesty situation. Nods, winks…whatever. But now I’m thinking that Rubio, the pr leader on the bill, actually meant it which is why he made his recent statement.
This is the link to the letter from the four senators (Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas, Jeff Sessions of Alabama, Mike Lee of Utah and Chuck Grassley of Iowa ) outlining what they consider problematic:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/145700635/Letter-from-Sens-Cruz-Sessions-Lee-Grassley-Voicing-Concerns-with-S-744
Thoughts?
A Humble Lurker
@jayjaybear:
No it was Bush.
lojasmo
@pokeyblow:
It was snark you fucking moron. Now go cry about how uncivil I am.
Julia Grey
Very good.
Actually, as to the idea that it was Rubio who was the first Republican senator to make a move on immigration reform, it was actually my very own Huckleberry Graham, the Darling of South Carolina.
He did it for cheap labor agricultural reasons, I’m sure, but he did it, and it cost him quite a lot, which is why he has had to make up for it in the years since by acting like a (very pretty and well-groomed) Neanderthal on every other issue.