This might be irrational and superstitious, but yesterday’s VRA ruling seems to me to be a sign that immigration reform won’t pass. Maybe something of some kind will pass, and Bobo et al. will agree that it’s a significant Burkean step that shows that conservative reformers are helping the GOP evolve blah blah blah, but on the whole, yesterday’s ruling probably signals that the GOP is ready to double-down on its all-white strategy.
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raven
A Black cat crossed my trail
I said so many time before. . .
Higgs Boson's Mate
Not sure about how this will play out. The GOPers may decide that it’s okay to vote for immigration reform because “Fuck ’em. We won’t let ’em vote anyway.”
FMguru
This is probably right.
The VRA strikedown means that the GOP can wring some additional support out of the current system to offset their losses to Latinos, so they can forego trying to reach out to Latinos (and risk setting off a backlash from their base) for the next several cycles at least. Immigration reform is unneccesary now, and so it will die a quiet death in the house.
Shrillhouse
Love the Howlin’ Wolf reference.
srv
All the pieces are coming for the Rando or Cruzevolution.
People are just tired of moderate Republicans in the WH
Baud
House was going to have trouble passing it anyway, so probably impossible to know what effect VRA will have.
Zifnab
I don’t know how closely the SCOTUS judges conspire with the GOP Party structure at large. Certainly, I think there’s distance between the big swing justices – Roberts and Kennedy – or you wouldn’t have seen the PPACA survive or /insert Kennedy decision I’m not going to look up but am confident exists here/.
The Congressmen in purple-ing states like Florida and Arizona and Texas aren’t going to have the luxury of pissing off Latinos forever. VRA might single that they’ll run back to Jim Crow as a solution. But I still think Republican Party bosses consider Latinos a political group they can win over with the right messaging. I don’t know if Republican legislators are absolutely ready to give up on the Hispanic vote, especially when you’ve got a $30B border fence contract and all sorts of new immigration enforcement contract gigs sweetening the pot.
burnspbesq
I don’t think it’s either irrational or superstitious, but I don’t think there’s much of a linkage between the events. It’s a coincidence.
I flatly and absolutely reject Cole’s hairbrained theory that Supreme Court Justices are nothing more than political operatives, for precisely the reason that he throws in my face every chance he gets: the Sibelius decision. His theory fails abjectly at explaining why that case came out the way it did.
On the other hand, there are three pretty simple explanations for the way immigration reform is going to crash and burn: (1) Obama wants it, and that’s enough reason for the vast majority of House Republicans to say no; (2) Bob Goodlatte, the Chair of the House Judiciary Committee, is sticking to his piecemeal approach because it gives him the maximum number of opportunities to shiv Boehner; and (3) a comprehensive bill spells the end of Marco Rubio’s Presidential aspriations, and he’ll do pretty much whatever it takes to avoid that.
Violet
@FMguru:
It may die, but it will not be a quiet death. And after today’s ruling it’s just part of a pattern. Letting immigration reform die just helps solidify that image.
NickT
The House GOP won’t dare to bring any meaningful version of immigration reform to a vote. Boehner has no control over his caucus – and doesn’t want to risk his comfortably somnolent existence. Cantor likes Boehner as the fall guy for the foreseeable future while he hints at all the conservative things he would like to do – but, of course, would be even less able to accomplish if he removed the Kochwork Orange.
Litlebritdifrnt
There was a completely irrational guy on my local radio station this evening on my drive home. He was basically saying that the browns and the darks are going to take over ‘Murica and leave the “ethnicity that founded this nation” in the dust. He was saying that the immigration bill was an attempt to “get people from Kenya (birfer anyone), India, Equador, all of these other countries in so that they can vote and basically nullify the votes of the god-fearing white folks”. I kid you not, and the host didn’t bat an eyelid. To his credit the guy from the Voter Integrity Project who was also on tried his best to distance himself from the nutjob but the host kept hauling him right back in. It was fascinating.
NickT
@burnspbesq:
The Supremes took a position on a really rather good Finnish composer of classical music? Dare I ask for more information?
Roger Moore
@FMguru:
No way does it die quietly. The Teabaggers who hate it will trumpet their victory over the brown hordes as loud as possible.
Tom Levenson
The GOP is damned either way. They’re already on the wrong side of the demographic curve (ask President Romney). I think get out the vote and legal challenges for 2014 are going to be up the wazoo; it may (I hope) this decision will have the same effect that voter suppression attempts did last year — enraging and energizing those whom it is meant to disenfranchise. If the GOPsters bar immigration reform, then the growing block of Latino-American voters already eligible will take note. If they don’t, then they have to confront a growing block of new citizens who won’t forget the last few years over night.
I think the VRA is our Dredd Scott/Plessy v. Ferguson…but I think the gap between the unjust ruling and the outcome of the struggle to come will be shorter by far than it was in P v. F. Assuming we make it so, of course.
EthylEster
@Zifnab wrote: I don’t know how closely the SCOTUS judges conspire with the GOP Party structure at large.
I rather doubt they “conspire” at all.
But what do I know?
burnspbesq
@NickT:
They prefer Copland, who writes real Amurkin music. Finns are practically Russian, which means they’re practically Commies. Plus they have funny names. What’s a Rautaavara, anyhoo?
Ives and Carter are a couple of hippies.
NickT
@Tom Levenson:
This is true. The GOP operatives on the Supreme Court signed their party’s death warrant today – and when you throw in the imminent refusal to vote for immigration reform and the renewed war on women, that day might come sooner than anyone expected. The GOP is alienating and enraging key constituencies at a remarkable rate.
JPL
Boston voter turnout is suppose to be quite low. If Gomez pulls this race out, it might be time to ……..
ruemara
OT: :/ I applied for an internship with a local web firm because I’d be fine with at least a second job that could restart my career and give my resume some credibility with recent projects. I was rejected in 10 hours. They really just want us to die, don’t they?
PsiFighter37
If this doesn’t get our side to GOTFV come 2014, we’re screwed.
We need to control everything in the government…it’s clear the GOP has long lost any interest in pandering to anyone other than rural, bumblefuck white America.
mai naem
I was listening to a long piece about the immigration bill. Schumers got at least 70 votes for the bill possibly 74 votes. I don’t think Rubio’s as important because Schumers got way above the 60 votes. 74 votes does put a little pressure on the House to come up with something even though half of Boehner’s caucus are wingnut whackjobs.
The Republican Party is the perfect analogy for the past few decades for the average Corporate American CEO. Screw the future, I am going to grab whatever loot I can right now, because the only person right now who is important is me! me! me! Screw even the future me!
raven
never mind
mai naem
@ruemara: Where do you live? I saw a local blurb(Phx) that GoDaddy was having a job fair(today?not sure) but that they had jobs in several locations. You might want to give it a look.
BGinCHI
The GOP was creeping toward marginality. Now they are setting the land speed record.
Proceed, fuckheads.
The only resort they have left is to buy the government.
mai naem
w@Litlebritdifrnt:
what you meant was that you had a teabagger call in to your local radio station.
Ronnie Pudding
@burnspbesq:
Ives and Carter are a couple of hippies
Ives was hardly a hippy. He used manly, rugged chords, unlike those sissy European composers.
lamh35
I don’t think Boehner and McConnell want the fight that the VRA has brought and hopefully will bring to GOP election future.
IDK about immigration, but with complete sweep of Conservative justices gutting deciding to gut the law, the effect is that essentially people see it as a GOP-lead decision, fair or not. So not only can they give up on Blacks (which I think they pretty much have) to give up Hispanics too, mean the Establishment GOP has to be content to just be a non-national party.
Anyway, back on VRA, I’m not one to be cynical so I’ll just say a “broken clock…” and all that about this:
Eric Cantor Reacts To Voting Rights Act Ruling
I will say notice that Boehner and McConnell declined to comment, but of course ya know that the usual suspects like Jefferson Beauragard Sessions and Guv Jan “finger-wagging” Brewer released statements commending the SCOTUS decision.
Villago Delenda Est
@burnspbesq:
You’re not paying attention, then.
piratedan
@EthylEster: everybody already received their game plans at the last secret Koch Brothers confab in Palm Springs, no reason to deviate from it now.
Davis X. Machina
@burnspbesq: Ives was a vice-president of an insurance company. In other words, a maker. One of the job-creating FIRE gods.
Trollhattan
Am a little concerned about a Zimmerman acquittal on the heels of this. Folks can only accumulate so much abuse…
Roger Moore
@burnspbesq:
No, they’re political operatives who wear funny black robes and also have a role in non-political judicial decisions. But when an obviously political question comes their way, they act a lot more like political operatives than like impartial judges.
piratedan
@PsiFighter37: now that’s unfair, they’re quite willing to cater to the 1% at a moments notice….
lamh35
@Trollhattan: And all right before the 4th of July possibly…God Bless America indeed.
I am not a kook
@burnspbesq:
Fighting. Words.
Speak for yourself, Burning Man.
Rautavaara: “Iron Hill”
HTH. HAND.
quannlace
How does this sociopath say things like that without a bolt of lightening coming down?
patroclus
Today’s evisceration of the Voting Rights Act, in my view, has little or nothing to do with the pending immigration bill. A VRA reauthorization, in this Session, is extremely unlikely and probably in the foreseeable future as well. I don’t think conflating the two is really all that helpful.
Politically, the Republicans have all but written off the African-American vote; they have not as yet written off the entire Latino vote (although they have certainly mgone far in that direction). If it wasn’t clear already, today’s destruction of the VRA signals all-out war on blacks and civil rights – the immigration bill shows that at least some Republicans have not decided that all-out war with Latinos is what they want to do.
Roger Moore
@quannlace:
Makes you want to be an atheist, doesn’t it? Join us! Join us!
NickT
@burnspbesq:
I would encourage you to test your theories of how Finns are practically Russian when you next visit Finland. You’ll get lots of attention. Start with a crowded late night bar and see how it goes.
mdblanche
@burnspbesq: Copland? Egads, no. He was a rootless cosmopolitan (nudge, nudge) and a filthy lefty. You could tell because he wrote catchy tunes that people liked instead of dense complex stuff like a good highbrow should (yes, this really was not snark 60 years ago).
@Davis X. Machina: Ives was also a bitter old reactionary who probably would have punched anybody who called him a hippie.
Violet
@patroclus:
At least some Republicans can recognize demographic trends and read polls. They know that killing immigration reform on the heels of this ruling is not going to help their party win elections.
burnspbesq
@NickT:
I would have thought that given the context, it was not necessary to explicitly mark that as snark.
mdblanche
@lamh35: Interesting. I’m sure Cantor doesn’t mean a word of it, but the fact he felt the need to say it suggests he knows this could backfire on the GOP.
MikeBoyScout
Look out strange cat people, my rooster’s on the prowl
Reaping the whirlwind is always a rather strange occurance.
I never believed our Republican congresscritters would pass imigration reform.
But I didn’t really believe the SCOTUS would throw out Section IV of the VRA in a 4-4 tie with Uncle Thomas casting the deciding vote.
Here’s the thing. It took about 100 years for the promise of the 14th amemendment to become an enforcable ‘law’ and it took about 100 years and a civil war, the most deadly war in our nation’s history, for the promise of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” to be seen as applying to the African slaves upon whose broken backs our Founding Fathers made their fortunes.
All in all, it was trending pretty well … until recently.
In the long run whitey (me!) is a minority in this nation. Why today’s whitey thinks tomorrow’s whitey has got a snowball’s chance in hell of his minority rights being respected is beyond me.
As you sew, so shall you reap.
Bravo Alito!
Roger Moore
@NickT:
I think your sarcasmometer needs adjustment.
ninedragonspot
@burnspbesq: What a Saariaho excuse for a joke.
I know, I know: you’ll tell me it’s Sallinen delivery.
Mr Stagger Lee
When Clarence Thomas dies, the reaction in the Black community will be like the one many Britons had when Margaret Thatcher died.
Maybe there will be a white cemetery in the South that will allow him to be buried there like the obedient house servant buried next to his master.
Patricia Kayden
@Tom Levenson: Agreed. Especially that the GOP is damned regardless of whether immigration reform passes. Their over reliance on White voters is going to bite them in their butts sooner rather than later. And today’s S Court VRA ruling should galvanize minority voters.
Patricia Kayden
@lamh35: Cantor is going to have to apologize for that statement and say that he was under the influence of flu medication. There is no way that T’Baggers aren’t jumping for joy re the VRA ruling. And there is no way that Congressional Repubs are going to do a dang thing to address the ruling.
eemom
@patroclus:
I’ll go you one further: it’s ridiculous.
Sorry DougJ, but I am too honestly upset over today’s decision to have much patience for dumbass political blog parlor games.
What is most appalling about today’s decision is that 5 guys who are completely fucking NON-accountable to the political process made it — not this idiocy about them huddling in smoke filled rooms with the Kochs and Karl Rove.
NickT
@burnspbesq:
There is quality snark and then there is snark.
Riptyde
Didnt take Texas long to take advantage of the decision: http://www.sos.state.tx.us/about/newsreleases/2013/062513.shtml
SRW1
@burnspbesq:
What, you think rautaavara is challenging? Don’t even try jäätelöä!
Perkele!