Rubio: House GOP likely to kill immigration reform:
Last week, some notable GOP lawmakers said their government shutdown effectively killed the immigration bill’s prospects. Yesterday, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) echoed their arguments.
Florida Sen. Marco Rubio (R) said that President Obama’s handling of the 16-day government shutdown has made the path to reforming the country’s immigration system more difficult.
Republicans’ lack of trust for the president, Rubio said on “Fox News Sunday,” makes the prospect of a final bill bleaker than ever.
That’s this week’s excuse. Next week’s will be something to do with the White House vegetable garden and Michelle. The week after, it will be Bo’s turn.
The House GOP was never, ever going to vote for immigration reform. The only way for the House as a whole to pass the Senate’s bill would be for Boehner to put the bill on the floor so Democrats could join the few Republicans who aren’t part of the nativist rump of the GOP in a bi-partisan vote for reform. If last week showed anything, it proved that the only thing that will make Boehner bring something to the floor for a bi-partisan vote is the spectre of sure, immediate and catastrophic national ruin. Immigration reform doesn’t live up to that standard, so it ain’t gonna happen. The end.
ruemara
And may it motivate a wave of Hispanic voters, without which, they are sure to keep the House.
The Dangerman
Sunny will share the blame.
shelly
Looks like that Republican ‘outreach’ thing is chugging along nicely. And trying to blame it all on Obama has been working just great, just look at their latest poll numbers.
Mark S.
Not passing legislation increases freedom.
Waldo
Eh. This is a problem that fixes itself. The longer they stall, the more it hurts them at the polls. Keep lobbing it into their court.
schrodinger's cat
@Waldo: Not true for the millions of immigrants stuck in a limbo.
kindness
Rubio careened off script. The proper Republican response to any problem is to blame President Obama.
J.D. Rhoades
@shelly:
And they continue to make the same mistake they made in 2012 by dismissing all polls that show their favorability tanking as “liberal.” Worked so well for Mittens, dinnit?
BGinCHI
Even Tina Brown could do this analysis.
Waspuppet
And yet none of Our Highly Paid Media Stars ever, ever, EVER cites Boehner as a problem when they’re moaning about excessive partisanship in “Washington.”
And they never will.
Frankensteinbeck
I’m not even sure it would pass if brought up for a vote. The impending tsunami of beheading, cantaloupe-thighed swarthy anchor babies is one of the major conservative bugaboos right now. God, these people are racist. Forget even the horrible insults I’ve listed here, the mere fact that they think Mexican immigrants is a terrifying and horrible problem says all you need to know about the modern GOP.
Xantar
I’m already seeing articles in the media about how Republicans won because they still haven’t raised taxes. It wasn’t just the WSJ saying that either.
feebog
@ruemara:
I think it goes deeper than that. They are permanently assuring that 75 to 80% of Hispanic voters will vote as Democrats for the rest of their lives. Studies show that people establish voting patterns early. Yes, a few change, but overall, the vast majority stick with who brung im’ to the prom. IIRC, Obama carried 70% of the Hispanic vote in 2012. Failing to act on the immigration bill is going to bump that ratio higher for Dems.
burnspbesq
The subject of today’s wing nut Two Minutes Hate will be Gov. Christie, who announced that the state is going to drop its appeal in the same-sex marriage case. The Supreme Court sent a pretty clear message that the state was going to lose on the merits when it denied a stay pending appeal.
The right thing to do, and smart politics, because it defuses a potentially powerful issue with two weeks to go in the campaign.
Still, he compromised a principle, and for that, there can. Be no forgiveness. I expect Erick of the House of Erick to issue a fatwa instructing the faithful to stay home on November 5.
Belafon
@Xantar: Would the opposite of “moving the goal posts” be “changing the scoring rules?” “We won because we didn’t lose as bad as everyone though we would” is about as lame as my kids saying “Well, I didn’t want to be in that stupid contest anyway.”
Keith P.
Of course, it’s all Obama’s fault for playing hardball on the debt. Had that not happened, it would have been because Obama didn’t invite them over for lunch. Had that happened, it would have been because Obama injected himself into the debat.
Mike in NC
@Mark S.:
Only legislation that benefits the top 1% is worthy of their great minds.
CarolDuhart2
@schrodinger’s cat: But a lot of those folks in limbo have American-born children who aren’t in limbo. The wait is for those kids to grow up and register Democrat and vote for folks who will help their aging parents out of the shadows.
Violet
Classic example of an abuser: “You made me hit you.” Republicans fit right in that mold here: “Democrats make us unable to pass immigration reform. It’s the Democrats’ fault.”
@Waspuppet:
I heard some reporter in Washington–maybe Kristen Welker on NBC?–say that John Boehner came out stronger from the shutdown/debt ceiling debacle. Uh huh.
Belafon
OT: Has anyone else heard about Oprah snubbing Obama on the ACA? The news this morning was talking about how Obama invited some celebrities to help put the word out about the ACA and enrollments, Oprah not only said no, but she’s planning on talking about the website issues and what she thinks is wrong about the ACA.
I don’t know all the details, so don’t start with “What has happened to Oprah” or “She’s so wealthy now” etc. I wanted to know if anyone has heard anything else about this.
mai naem
@The Dangerman: Well, at least we can finallyhave one of the Obamas yelling at the dogs – ” Sunny, Bo-No!”
I hope Obama starts on immigration reform just to distract the GOP from the heathcare reform IT issues. Also too, you’re going to have a whole shitload of American born kids of Mexicans are going to be hitting 18 by 2020. I’m figuring quite a few by 2016. But, hey. please proceed GOP.
Jay in Oregon
@feebog:
I believe conservatives refer to that as being “stuck on the liberal plantation,” in that wonderful post-racial way of theirs.
PurpleGirl
@CarolDuhart2: We hope that those American-born children will grow up and register to vote. They may, alternatively, learn that there is no value in voting and nothing to be gained by voting. Republicans are wishing for this result.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Frankensteinbeck:
I spent most of last weekend with my conservative mom watching her favorite reality TV shows, including “Border Patrol,” and I have to say I was surprised (and pleased) by how compassionately that show portrays illegal immigrants. The Patrol agents are shown working hard to prevent people from being injured — at one point, they even gave a raft back to a couple of unsuccessful immigrants who couldn’t swim so the guys could paddle back to the Mexican side of the Rio Grande. They also give a lot of time for people in custody to tell their stories of why they took the risk.
In a way, I think the show has mellowed her view of illegal immigration. Now what I mostly hear from her is along the lines of, “It’s really sad, but we can’t take them all” rather than the repugnant stuff we hear from national Republicans.
Violet
@Belafon: Page Six has the story. Take that with a grain of salt.
EconWatcher
OT, but the Richmond Times Dispatch has refused to endorse any candidate for Virginia governor, basically saying that both McAuliffe and Cucinelli are losers. I’ll do my duty and vote for McAuliffe, but I gotta say, I’ve got some sympathy for the sentiment.
Higgs Boson's Mate (Crystal Set)
@Waspuppet:
Boehner is a symptom. At present, they would only replace him with someone even more partisan. The problem is that House Republicans are either lunatics or afraid of the lunatics. That’s the thing that the media is tiptoeing around. The R’s now have a faction that has demonstrated its willingness to turn the party’s well-tuned techniques of character assassination, lies, and false accusations against anyone who is judged insufficiently pure.
Punchy
They are permanently assuring that 75 to 80% of Hispanic voters will vote as Democrats
Alex S.
A couple of months ago I predicted that immigration reform would pass because big business wants it. I thought the republicans would listen to their masters. But this is the second time the republicans defied them, after flirting with default. The loss of Romney and the subsequent depression caused by the realization that the white vote alone is not enough, apparently was a short-term phenomenon. It makes me wonder what big business is going to do. They need to get rid of the teabaggers, so it might pay off to withhold support in 2014. If they sit out 2016 instead, the democratic wave might become too strong. Better to cleanse the party now and have Christie nominated.
Xantar
@Belafon:
I don’t know about what Oprah thinks of the ACA particularly, but I will say that she lost me when she became an anti-vaxxer.
Then again, she didn’t really have me to begin with…
Xecky Gilchrist
@Belafon: Would the opposite of “moving the goal posts” be “changing the scoring rules?”
I think it’s more like they’re insisting they were playing baseball all along. The shutdown now officially had nothing to do with Obamacare.
MikeJ
@Belafon: The guy who was flogging the Oprah snubs Obama story in the NY Post is the author of The Amateur: Barack Obama in the White House and The Truth About Hillary: What She Knew, When She Knew It, and How Far She’ll Go to Become President.
I’d use a few grains of salt with anything he had to say.
Lurking Canadian
I just had to see that again. The Republicans “lack trust” in the President? Because he did exactly what he said he would do? For this reason, they “lack trust” in him?
What he really means, of course, is that they “lack trust that the President will kneel when asked to kiss the hem of John Boehner’s trousers”, but I guess he can’t say that out loud.
ruemara
@feebog: That only works of hispanics show the hell up. LIke 20-somethings. They can’t afford to miss every election but the presidential ones.
NonyNony
@Alex S.:
No – if this is a faction war it will not be sufficient to “withhold support”. If they do that the teabagger wave will be too strong and they will never claim back their position as the puppetmasters of the party. They need to do an aggressive pushback in 2014 where they pick out safe Republican districts that contain rabid teabaggers and primary them to death with their, ahem, “unlimited corporate cash” to put reliable pro-business Republicans into those seats. If they do not do this, they will lose control of the Republican party entirely.
I think as a holding action they will fail – those “safe” Republican seats are safe precisely because you can run the nastiest, vilest piece of work in those districts and still get a majority R+13% victory. The incentives are all lined up for “more crazy” instead of less. It will be interesting to watch them try to fight back against the monster that they’ve let loose from the lab though.
? Martin
Lack of trust? The President and Harry Reid were the only two people that actually kept their word. It’s Republican’s fault that they didn’t believe them, not the President’s.
Belafon
@MikeJ: I would, but I caught it on the local ABC affiliated news channel this morning. I don’t actually think it will amount to much, it was just something I had heard.
eric
Now that the GOP is back to talking about disenfranchising and marginalizing people (of color), the MSM will dutifully go back to its role of lapdog and the both sides do it meme will return with a vengeance, in part because they could not use it as a club for the debt debacle.
Elizabelle
PBO major address on healthcare rollout.
On C-Span 1. Live now.
In DC, the NBC and CBS affiliates are carrying it live.
Not ABC local: The View trumps healthcare; not local Fox TV: some reality show with Bethenny something.
Elizabelle
While working out the kinks in the system, I want everyone to know the facts …
the website is working for many, when ppl stick with it, they’re happy with the results.
Second, we’re in week three of a six-month enrollment period. …. Keep in mind coverage does not begin until January 1; first payment due December 15; plans will not sell out; price will not change.
Everybody who wants insurance through the marketplace will get insurance.
third: we’re doing everything we can; experts working 24/7. Tech experts — who, by the way, have seen this happen before…
we are confident we will get all the problems fixed.
Elizabelle
PBO reminds the website is not the only way to buy insurance.
Can buy offline, on the phone — some folks are more comfortable on the phone anyway.
Now he’s describing that, and in event you just prefer working with a person.
However: telephone numbers are on the website!!
Why can’t he have a chyron on or be standing behind a podium with the phone number??
Elizabelle
number is 1 800 318 2596
Ppl available 24/7, 150 languages.
Wait time has been one minute, altho may go up now that he’s read number on the air.
Says it takes about 25 mins for an individual to apply for coverage; about 45 minutes for a family.
And can apply in person with local navigators. Or community centers or hospitals.
community.gov for more info
Finally: in coming weeks we will contact you directly with info on how to apply and obtain healthcare insurance.
AnonPhenom
Attention Democratic Party functionaries.
All refrences to the “Hastert Rule” will, in future, be prefaced with the phrase “THE PARTISAN G.O.P.”
As in; “Immigration reform would be possible if not for the partisan G.O.P. Hastert Rule.”
beth
“It’s time for people to stop rooting for its failure” – this, Mr. President, keep saying it over and over. Make them own what a bunch of petty, cold hearted pricks they are.
Splitting Image
@ruemara:
My impression is that the Hispanic vote in the Southwest is very similar to Quebec in the 1950s. It’s hard to believe at this point, but until around 1960, the English-speaking minority in Quebec controlled the political system in the province. Part of the reason was that the French voters were less enthusiastic voters. That changed in 1960 and the French vote not only became more radicalized, but more consistent.
I think Texas is the key to the whole thing. At the moment the Southwest’s influence is limited nationally because Texas and California tend to cancel each other out. If the Democrats can once get them to vote on the same side, the way everyone in the region sees the political situation will change radically. Hispanics in the Southwest will become the country’s most important voting bloc, but only if they all turn out. Registration and get-out-the-vote operations will become a lot easier if people feel their vote will count for something. Disillusionment is a really hard thing to get around.
raven
Aw, a woman keeled over behind him. Looked like she had some kind of patch on her arm.
Elizabelle
@beth:
Yes! And we can do that too!
Somebody just fainted behind Obama.
He: This always happens when I talk too long.
They’re in the Rose Garden. It’s a sunny day in DC.
Elizabelle
C Span 1: And now they’re going soon to Pat McCrory from NC at a live Heritage Fnd event, to discuss how governors are handling healthcare in the states.
No time to take calls from listeners.
Right-O.
Obama speech broadcasts again tonight at 8. I shall catch the whole thing.
kerFuFFler
Hey, a congrats to Cole! One of his 2009 posts was just quoted in a Salon article by Paul Rosenberg. http://www.salon.com/2013/10/21/stop_enabling_the_right_the_media_just_makes_dysfunction_worse/
raven
@kerFuFFler: I though he’d done more like 10,000! 2009 seems to few.
Elizabelle
NYTimes website breaking news headline:
Well, he had a little more to say than that …. I did not see beginning of his speech, though …
chopper
it’s like a baseball team quitting the series because they lost the first game. what a bunch of pussies.
Corner Stone
@kerFuFFler: Ahhh, back when Cole was still alive.
Those were the days.
some guy
one would think that as the son of illegal immigrants Marco would have a little compassion, but no. Right now, he’s caught between a rabidd Florida Tea Party that thinks he’s a quisling and the majority of Floridians, who think he’s simply an ineffective oaf.
Mary G
The way I heard it is that the WH had a meeting of celebs and Oprah sent a minion instead of coming herself. The thing the yahoos are leaving out is that most of the other celebs did too. In fact the pres. just nominated Oprah for the Medal of Freedom.
Chyron HR
@Elizabelle:
Because I had to work today.
Corner Stone
@some guy:
I’m obviously not a fan of Rubio but I simply can not even think of him anymore without seeing him reaching for the water bottle during that response speech.
It’s petty, to be sure. But that still kills me every time I picture it.
Belafon
@Mary G: Thanks. I was wondering about it.
Elizabelle
@EconWatcher:
The Richmond Times Dispatch (aka the Times Disgrace, to locals) endorsement was interesting.
They endorsed the Democratic lt. governor candidate, Ralph Northam, over the whackjob GOP critter that emerged a surprise pick from the GOP convention.
They also endorsed the GOP attorney general candidate, who is Cuccinelli light (we’re talking zero % rating by Virginia Education Assn and 100% approval rating by the American Conservative Union).
And the RTD was sneaky in their language:
Moderate temperament, maybe. Politics, no. Despite how many noises the guy makes about being able to work with a Democratic governor and lt. governor.
And Obenshain’s ads are positive. The one in heavy rotation in Northern Virginia is him and his teenage daughter, and he talks about the importance of jobs. JOBS. JOBS.
Jobs being the first thing anyone associates with “attorney general.”
Herbal Infusion Bagger
What about the rampant divisions in the Democratic Party?
We have the traditionalist “popcorn” faction, and then the “chips and salsa” faction which in turn has its ‘rojo’ and ‘verde’ wings, and then the controversial “cheetos” faction. We’re never going to get unity on the snack food we consume while watching the GOP’s internal battles.
some guy
@Corner Stone:
he’s got 43/45 approve/disapprove numbers, so he could still beat Debby Wasserman-Schulz in a Republican primary contest.
Elizabelle
@Chyron HR:
lol.
Herbal Infusion Bagger
Two years is too short a time to deal with a problem that’s been growing in the GOP since Goldwater.
I know a lot of people compare the GOP to the extremist factions in the UK Labour Party in the early 1980s. But that took several years, almost two election cycles, for the Labour Party to root out, plus there were internal mechanisms in the Labour Party that made it easier for that party to expel their extremists. Plus you had a centralized leadership that was pressing hard to get the Trots out.
I see a Derek Hatton in the GOP (Ted Cruz), but I don’t see a Neil Kinnock. Plus, the extremists in the Labour Party didn’t have wackjob conservative billionaires fronting them money, or a network of infotainment moguls egging on the grassroots.
So I don’t see the GOP getting rid of their extremists by 2014, nor by 2016. Maybe by 2022, but only after some humiliating defeats in 2016 and 2020.
Herbal Infusion Bagger
Two years is too short a time to deal with a problem that’s been growing in the GOP since Goldwater.
I know a lot of people compare the GOP to the extremist factions in the UK Labour Party in the early 1980s. But that took several years, almost two election cycles, for the Labour Party to root out, plus there were internal mechanisms in the Labour Party that made it easier for that party to expel their extremists. Plus you had a centralized leadership that was pressing hard to get the Trots out.
I see a Derek Hatton in the GOP (Ted Cruz), but I don’t see a Neil Kinnock. Plus, the extremists in the Labour Party didn’t have wackjob conservative billionaires fronting them money, or a network of infotainment moguls egging on the grassroots.
So I don’t see the GOP getting rid of their extremists by 2014, nor by 2016. Maybe by 2022, but only after some humiliating defeats in 2016 and 2020.
cane giallo
@mai naem: The problem is that most of those kids will be living in areas that are already significantly Hispanic. In the GOP controlled states strongly Hispanic areas have been gerrymandered out of the ability to have much of an effect on federal or state legislature elections. The suburban county I live in has growing Hispanic and Asian populations but it is already deep, dark blue (there are no GOP elected officials at the county level or representing the county in the state legislature). A lot of the districts gerrymandered to GOP advantage are rural and nobody is going to move there because there isn’t any work. The demographic shift at the national level will not be reflected at the local/state level of apportionment.
scav
@cane giallo: was a time recently when exactly that was happening. Little rural towns rolling over to significant hispanic populations because of local meatpacking plants, etc. Don’t know what’s happened since the downturn. Don’t know how big a trend it was — certainly big enough to be noticeable locally. ‘f couse, I was mainly overjoyed to find better Mexican food in teeny Iowan towns than larger ones cursed with chains.
mdblanche
From the aptly named GOP autopsy report:
Not to worry. I’m sure whining about not being able to trust the President after you just got through trying to destroy the economy will convince those Hispanic voters that you really do care about them and don’t dream of an America without them. I’m sure it will be enough to prevent your share of the vote with Hispanic Americans from crashing into the single digits.
Botsplainer
If you go to TPM, the Chamber of Commerce bluntly tells Cruz to shut the fuck up.
The money is talking, and man, is it pissed.
Steeplejack
@Elizabelle:
Yes, and nowhere does that ad bother to mention that he’s a Republican. Minor, unimportant detail, I guess.
some guy
@Botsplainer:
After helping to fund Dick Armey’s dick army the Chamber is shocked, simply shocked, that there is gambling going on at Rick’s.
Frankensteinbeck
@mdblanche:
I’m fascinated that they don’t understand that their message about education, jobs, and the economy is ‘destroy them.’
Jockey Full of Malbec
@Botsplainer:
That, as the kidz say, is a Big Fucking Deal.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Nice. Is the Chamber still run by that goat-fucker Donohue?
Yatsuno
@Botsplainer: They can suck it. The Chamber got full behind Cruz and the teabillies when they met their needs but stuffing that genie back in the bottle won’t be easy. This might actually be entertaining, because Cruz has his gay sugar daddy and doesn’t need the business wing for his election.
Frankensteinbeck
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
But the insurance industry totally wanted the ACA.
/snark
Jay C
@some guy:
Umm, Debbie Wasserman-Schulz is a Democrat, but I think, unfortunately, Sen. Waterbottle probably would beat her (if narrowly) in a statewide race. DWS was one of those upcoming Dem stars who flared out early: I’m not saying (I don’t know enough about FL politics to opine) that it wouldn’t be possible – just hard, without a lot of factors lining up….
Carl Nyberg
Republicans will whine about not getting enough respect from Democrats b/c…
1. there are low information voters who are sympathetic with this on an emotional level…
2. the corporate media enables this sort of silliness.
Belafon
@Jay C: I believe he was trying to be funny.
some guy
@Jay C:
keep repeating that and eventually, some day in the not too distant future, it may come true. if wishes were fishes we would all be swimming each and every day.
Captain C
@chopper: And after they’d spent most of the first game obstructing play, cheating, arguing incessantly with the umps, and threatening to burn down the stadium.
some guy
mark Levin on the Chamber: “If they want to field candidates to take out our candidates– maybe we should make sure we don’t support the businesses that are members of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce…”
pass the freaking popcorn.
Patricia Kayden
@Elizabelle: Thanks for that play by play outline of PBO’s remarks. Couldn’t listen since I’m at work. I tried to sign up through the MD exchange but that website wasn’t working at the time. Hope the ACA website gets fixed quickly.
WereBear
They take a loooooong time to learn anything. So merciless routs it shall be!
Botsplainer
@some guy:
It’s Monday, goddammit. Too early in the day for drunken internet watching. I’m genuinely disappointed that closet case Steyn is filling in for Lardbaugh.
Mid morning, the sub for the early 3 hour hate was trying to take on McConnell on behalf of his teabigot primary opponent, and the old white GOPer audience was pissed and dogging Cruz.
max
@Herbal Infusion Bagger: Two years is too short a time to deal with a problem that’s been growing in the GOP since Goldwater.
Yes.
I know a lot of people compare the GOP to the extremist factions in the UK Labour Party in the early 1980s. But that took several years, almost two election cycles, for the Labour Party to root out, plus there were internal mechanisms in the Labour Party that made it easier for that party to expel their extremists. Plus you had a centralized leadership that was pressing hard to get the Trots out.
And the hard left collapsed to a certain extent with the fall of communism, not that there were ever that many of them in the first place, so marginalizing the extreme elements became permanent. The neo-confederates have been around for 200 years and they ain’t goin’ away anytime too soon.
I see a Derek Hatton in the GOP (Ted Cruz), but I don’t see a Neil Kinnock. Plus, the extremists in the Labour Party didn’t have wackjob conservative billionaires fronting them money, or a network of infotainment moguls egging on the grassroots.
Whackjobs *are* the party.
So I don’t see the GOP getting rid of their extremists by 2014, nor by 2016. Maybe by 2022, but only after some humiliating defeats in 2016 and 2020.
Repeated beatings would penetrate the low information networks of the South, and allow the D’s to defang some of the ratfucking mechanisms, including doing something about gerrymandering and vote suppression. That would help marginalize the more extreme elements.
max
[‘Going to be awhile.’]
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Patricia Kayden: I would’ve thought MD had a state site, which from what I’ve heard are working well, with the exception of HI, which used the same contractor as HHS?
Mnemosyne
@some guy:
Uh, when exactly is DWS going to be running in a Republican primary?
AnonPhenom
@Frankensteinbeck:
They wanted the mandate. The rest? NotSoMuch.
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
@kerFuFFler: I tried to read that Salon article and it didn’t make a lick of sense to me.
Frankensteinbeck
@Carl Nyberg:
3. Their ethos is built on narcissism and abuse. They are always the victims. It’s how they view the world.
@AnonPhenom:
Yep. I’ve tried to tell people, Heritage was pushing the mandate, not the two thousand pages of new regulations. Those are the real ACA.
Chris
@Herbal Infusion Bagger:
I don’t know a lot about British politics, but I think there are a few inherent problems in comparing the radical left and the radical right’s places on the political scene;
1) The radical right has the establishment on its side pretty much by definition, or at worst neutral. Even at the height of our “liberal consensus” years, right wing extremists – John Birchers, Goldwaterites, even the Ku Klux Klan – were never targeted by the kind of relentless purges the radical left faced in the Red Scare or the 1960s backlash. (Goldwater’s insurgent supporters in 1964, for example, never had to worry about the treatment Mayor Daley gave the “new left” in Chicago four years later. Neither did Strom Thurmond’s in 1948).
2) In general, left wing voters don’t want to be radicals. They vote for them because of real, material problems so pervasive they can’t ignore them – racial segregation, economic oppression, voter disenfranchisement – but if the system addresses these problems honestly, most of them are happy to come into the fold and abandon the radicals. That’s a lot harder to do with right wing radicals, most of whom are driven by Protocols of the Elders of Zion type anxieties that by definition can’t be addressed.
3) The same’s true of our moderates. There is no left wing equivalent to the right wing establishment’s decision, in the 1970s, to reach out to the furthest fringes of the right and pour billions of dollars into making them a political force. Our radicals emerge organically and have to drag the “moderates” kicking and screaming in their direction – there were no elite Southern Strategies waiting to aid the rise of communism, third world nationalism, etc.
The bottom line is that the deck is pretty much permanently stacked against the radical left, and except in very extreme circumstances, is somewhere between “favorable” and “neutral” towards the radical right. So, prospects of the radical right being rooted out the way the radical left periodically is are pretty iffy indeed.
ottercliff
An immigration bill would be a wonderful thing for the country, Marco. But if it is not possible for the GOP to do anything that might be construed as constructive, then the second best thing is getting all of you in both houses on paper voting NO on a reasonable immigration bill.
Besides, I’m sure the House schedule is completely filled with daily votes against ObamaCare.
wwwhhhaaaaaaaaaa!
? Martin
@AnonPhenom:
Well, it varied a lot by insurer. The for-profits wanted no part of it, including the mandate. The not-for-profits that you see covering 70% of the state population with insurance were much more supportive. In part because of the mandate, but also because it would be particularly painful for the for-profts, and because they were largely out of tools to get their costs in line. Once you hit that size you run through all of the ‘throwing your weight around’ solutions pretty fast, and next come up against politicking through the insurance commissioner and the state legislature. Your growth is then tied to the ability of your state to attract new employers, because group plans are where they live. That’s a difficult place for those insurers to be – because their market is largely out of their control in the largest sense. A level playing field (such as ACA imposes) doesn’t necessarily help them come out ahead, but it eliminates part of the risk against a shrinking market. So large insurers in some states see that as a benefit while others don’t.
Remember, one one level all large businesses favor stability and predictability above all else. When you get big, your ability to adapt goes down – so a common set of rules is attractive (see ceiling fan regulation) but the change of introducing the exchanges is a disruption that they are worried about. The largest insurer in Iowa isn’t on the exchange until 2015 – they couldn’t ramp up in time. But the co-ops and smaller insurers are. That’s guaranteed to take at least some customers from the large insurer.
I think it’s particularly difficult to paint any of this with a broad brush. Everyone gets some upside and some downside. How you calculate that ratio, factoring in the biases of the board, is going to vary in each case.
? Martin
Actually, I should note one smallish for-profit that was all in favor of ACA because they bought a claims processing company, and figured that the market disruption by ACA would favor them (they’d be able to get onto the exchanges faster) and they’d also benefit from more claims processing. But they were also biased toward ACA because the owners of the company are Democrats, so they gave it a more neutral assessment.
Tony J
@Herbal Infusion Bagger:
Delurking for a moment because crap like this really shouldn’t be allowed to stand.
The ‘extremists’ Kinnock crucified in the 1980s were, by and large, lifelong Labour Party members who had won office by campaigning against Thatcherism, which I’d always been led to believe was a good thing to do. Liverpool became the poster-child for that kind of traditional Labour opposition to Tory cuts to public services and, as a result, the right-wing Media, fresh from its propaganda victory during the Miner’s Strike, went after its City Council with every shitty trick in the book, but those crazy Councillors – still – kept on getting elected by their constituents. Enter Kinnock, so eager to curry favour with the Press barons who were successfully painting him an an unelectable nutter that he used the Party Conference of 1985 to ‘Sistah Souljah’ Labour City Council in a speech so vile and dishonest that it could hardly have been written by anybody else but that paragon of honesty and integrity Peter ‘Tony Blair is a great man’ Mandelson. It set the stage for the transformation of Labour into New Labour under Blair and the wholesale shift of Britain’s Overton Window so far to the right that the current weak Coalition Government can privatise the Royal Mail without a peep of protest. Whoop-de frigging-do, what a glowing success that turned out to be.
People really shouldn’t regurgitate right-wing smears as if they’ve got a shred of truth to them, especially when what they’re applauding is the kind of back-stabbing hippy-punching that gets tut-tutted when it’s a shitbag like Joe Lieberman doing it.
Shorter – No, both sides don’t do it.
Chris
@Tony J:
Ah, thank you.
So basically, the “extremists” were your basic mid-20th century center-left party, and the “moderates” were what we in America would associate with the Third Way, DLC, Blue Dog crap.
Ick.
Tom Servo
@Xantar: I used to do work on the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program in the Court of Federal Claims. I guess I can sympathize on some level, but there really is no excuse for anti-vac advocacy. Money doesn’t make you smart I guess.
Tom Servo
@Mnemosyne: I ran into her at a DC Starbucks. Seems like a nice lady.
Herbal Infusion Bagger
Tony, I was frickin’ IN the Labour Party at the time. I campaigned in the by-election in Liverpool for the replacement to Eric Heffer’s seat. I was on the General Committee of my constituency party, and had a very minor national party post. I can still remember the words to songs made up about the intra-party battles in the Labour Party. Four people I knew back in those days are Labour MP’s now. I even had a feckin’ girlfriend who was in the Militant Tendency.
So kindly don’t lecture me on what I saw first-hand.
Liverpool was led by the Militant Tendency aka the Revolutionary Socialist League, which was a Pabloist splinter led by Ted Grant from the post-WW2 Revolutionary Communist Party. The Trots viewed the Labour Party as ‘in the way’ of the proles reaching revolutionary consciousness, and the purpose of the Militant being in the Labour party was to recruit cadre to their own organization. It took me about a year to understand that the Militant, and the other Trot organizations like it, far from being fellow Labour supporters, were parasitic on the Labour Party and really didn’t give a shit about it as long as they recruited cadre and sold their newspapers – their sociology is pretty similar to fringe cults like the Moonies or the Scientologists. Once I understood that, I was happy to help kick them out of the party.
“crazy Councillors – still – kept on getting elected by their constituents.”
What you don’t understand is that in Liverpool, for most wards a broom with ‘Labour’ on it would get elected. Who got into the seat was determined at the ward or constituency party level, when they selected who would stand for the Labour Party for the seat. And, if the Militant got control of the chairmanship or secretary’s position of a not-very-active ward or constituency (which the Labour party in Liverpool was), Militant could pack the selection meetings, or change the dates so that only their supporters turned out, and make sure only people vetted by Militant could join the ward or constituency party. And anyone not vetted by the Militant would get told their local Labour Party was ‘full’. That’s one of the reasons that the Labour Party took control of membership away from constituency parties – to stop constituency parties being hijacked by entryist organizations.
Tony J
@Chris:
Basically. Don’t get me wrong, quite a lot of the people expelled from the Labour Party by Kinnock and his crew were (and are) great big Sozialists, much, much further to the left than you get in American politics (or modern day British politics). They went into that fight with central Government with their eyes wide open except for a massive dollop of naivety vis a vis their Party’s national leadership. Kinnock and Co wanted to be seen as ‘serious and respectable’ by a London based MSM that overwhelmingly supported Thatcher, and crucifying the poster-boys of the Party’s left wing was how they decided to start. As a result every other major western European country has a strong ‘Party of the Left’ while Britain has New Labour and its uninspiring legacy of watered down Thatcherism.
Not a very good bargain for the country, but it did bag Kinnock some plum jobs in Europe and his lifetime peerage in the House of Lords. All very IGMFY.
Full disclosure. My Dad was one of those crazy extremists chucked out of the Party in ’86, so I take the BS comparisons with America’s right-wing crazies quite personally.
Tony J
@Herbal Infusion Bagger:
Like I said to Chris, my Dad was one of those ‘parasites on the Labour Party’ you know oh so much about and, funnily enough, your description is about as wrong as it can be. Lifelong Labour supporter, trade-unionist, shop-steward, never voted for anyone else, still votes for them now. So please, in the nicest possible way, the Go Fuck Yourself Party is in the suite next door, get yourself a drink on me.
schrodinger's cat
@CarolDuhart2: The current laws forbid them from doing so. If you violate immigration statutes, you have to return to your country of origin and wait I think for 10 years before you can come back. It does not matter if your spouse or child is a citizen.
lol
@kerFuFFler:
Though sadly, the writer seems to be a sucker for a lot of netroots conventional “wisdom”, particularly, the “Obama is obsessed with compromise and compromises for giggles also too he wants to cut Social Security and Medicare and will do so any day now” nonsense towards the end.
Uncle Cosmo
@? Martin: Ah, but remember what Lazarus Long had to say about lying (I paraphrase):
Ooooh, that nasty clever old Obummer! :D
Herbal Infusion Bagger
Ok, not that anyone else here gives a crap about the history of the UK Labour Party in the 1980s, but try this, written by Ted Grant, leader of the Militant Tendency, in ’59:
http://www.marxists.org/archive/grant/1959/03/entrism.htm (Ask your Dad about Ted Grant.)
“Our job in the preparatory period, which still exists, is the patient winning of ones and twos, perhaps of small groups, but certainly not the creation of a mass revolutionary current, which is not possible at the present time. …We have to establish ourselves as a tendency in the Labour Movement.”
Pretty much clear that their aims were the same as the WRP and the SWP, who were entryist groups within the Labour Party before them – recruit cadre, operate as a party within a party until the time is right to split off. Ted Grant just did it longer than Tony Cliff or Gerry Healy. (Ask your Dad about them too.)
Them’s the facts – Militant was a revolutionary organization operating within the UK Labour Party to serve Militant’s own ends and ideology. The fact your Dad was a dedicated organizer, committed union steward and decent guy doesn’t change that.