Jun 28 2007
Will The GOP Honor Representative Government?
There is a lot of speculation running out there that the immigration bill will fail its cloture vote test this morning. Clearly it will be close. But I think there are enough GOP members who honor the process of democracy more than winning on one issue. After years of bitching and moaning about how all conservatives want is an up-or-down vote on measures dear to them, and after years of Bush being in their corner for them, I think they will take salvaging the process over the immigration bill.
Why? Primarily because they are losing the battle and destroying the party. They are not convincing anybody. While Rassmussen runs polls about “amnesty” the polls about ‘guest workers’ and ‘paths to legal status’ show the same lopsided support. They know deep down the red herrings they floated failed and made them look either petty or like they keep grasping for technicalities to cover up for something. We had the canard no one does anything about the issue – while the bill’s opponents propose the “Do Nothing Now” strategy! That was irony at its best.
We had the myth we could not process criminal record checks from fingerprints in 24 hours because some people confused a passport with a fingerprint check. OK, so some are little less edcuated on the finer details of law enforcement (a surprising number of which hold law degrees – figures). We had the myth we couldn’t process 12 million fingerprint checks without serious investment. I busted that myth when I noted the FBI’s IAFIS fingerprint system, the largest in the world with connections to major international systems, had processed 100,000 prints a day. And it is easy to expand capacity. That made the check for criminal records a paltry 3 month affiar – if all the illegals came in on day one, which we know is unrealistic fantasy.
Recently a reader posted a real bizarre concern. Seems we are not a perfect species and we have imperfect systems. I guess Ted Kennedy was forced to admit our 97.5% accuracy rate in records management would create 300,000 errors if used on 12 million people. Oh well, I guess some people panic at the mention of typos. Heaven knows I create a lot of typos and I have seen the spelling police out there.
But this last example proved the silliness and vacuousness of the opponents. Some of the worst of the far right have likened illegal immigration to a cancer on our society. Hyperventilating as usual, it was a good analogy to address with the 97.5% accuracy rate. The deniers, the DO NOTHING NOW types, are pretty responding to the medicine for this supposed cancer by saying “no thanks, I will live with the cancer until I find a cure that is guaranteed 100% effective”. And people wonder why I call them ‘amnesty hypochondriacs”.
This bill will be more than 70% effective. I doubt it will reach 95% – but future adjustments can get it there. That range of 70-95% effective is damn good for new policy, but reasonable. It is not the doom and gloom fantasies of the far right and or the far left. So it is not the bane of our existence as the hypcochondriacs claim. The bane of our existence is hyperventilating exaggeration that insults wide swaths of this country who did nothing seriously wrong. THAT is what needs to deported – the unreasonable hate.
One of the worst myths from the far right is Mexico is a criminal, socialistic, disease ridden place which is trying take over this country. Mexico has its problems, but few countried on this planet have our standard of living. They are all lesser places to some degree. So using that as some reason to insult a people and a culture is the purist of the ugly American stereotypes and is why people hesitate our efforts to protect ourselves internationally. But even here at home that kind of biased rhetoric does damage. The irony of the far right’s arguments can be seen in the fact those people who left Mexico (and other places south), who left their families behind and wandered at great personal risk into a foreign land, did so because they too saw how much better America was. And they stayed and brought their family here and raised them because they wanted to share in the American dream. They were not bringing disease and crime, they were fleeing it.
So to claim those who come here illegally (and many legal residents and citizens once were here illegally) are the disease ridden criminals of a corrupt culture is as insulting and unfair as it gets. Every society has its criminals. At this point, with the ludicrous irony flying, I cannot help but note that Geoffrey Dhalmer (sp?), the human cannibal, was pure bread American. As I watch the far right turn on its own one could forgive someone from using the broad stroke exaggeration method of debate to make a connection!
But a better analogy is Tammy Faye Baker. When I hear Hannity whine about how he cannot believe what is happening in this country, and Laura Ingraham whine about process and procedure, all I see are Tammy Faye’s with dripping mascara running down their cheeks. They have cried ‘wolf’ so many times and nothing has been there that they have become comical. The ultimate irony in this comedy is the proposed solution: DO NOTHING NOW! This is such a bad situation and there is no hope in this bill the only answer is to do…..
Nothing! But of course when people point out the flaws in the opposition, the harm they are doing to the nation and the party, and the true bigots and racists in their midsts, the opposition goes Tammy-Faye on us. “El Presidente Jorge insulted us, the triator”. The irony is so thick it is amazing. So now we will see who are Senators, and who are Tammy-Faye’s crying out because they know God put them on this Earth to save America from the evil illegal aliens raising their families down the street, and of course from the dreaded typos in the government’s records. We have a choice. Either be serious and let America’s representative bodies VOTE on these measures, or listen to the hysterics for another 10 years.
I think a lot of people realize it is better to pass this, stop the civil war, and make more changes later. But then there are the suicidal ones who would be happy to fall on their sword and leave the GOP in the minority for decades – and see real amnesty arise when Dems take control of both houses of Congress and the Oval office. Because that is the choice they fail to see. This IS the best Hutchison, Chambliss and others will see in their lifetime. It is all down hill from here.
I suspect cooler heads will prevail, they will honor their core beliefs in representative government, many will honor a promise they made to El Presidente Jorge to give this thing a fair vote, and many will realize this is the best they will see for decades to come. That might tip the GOP from disaster. But what do I know. I thought they would avoid disaster in 2006. And right now they don’t even have people like me in their corner any more.
I don’t see the fascination with Fred either. Of course I will vote for him but there’s just something about him……
I hope I’m wrong and down the road I also see him as da man.
BTW my login name isn’t satIrist, it’s just satrist. Don’t be offended by my correcting you. I just don’t want to mislead anyone. If you think I’m a satIrist you will be expecting brilliant satire from me and I will disappoint you. My login name is just a combination of my first
and last names. Has nothing to do with satire. Again, please don’t be offended by my pointing this out.
Aitch, who is responsible for the status quo? Kennedy, who pushed for legislation to deal with blah blah blah blah blah! You cannot lay the “status quo†at the feet of the current GOP blah blah blah!
Meanwhile, all I was saying is that I’m underwhelmed about this “victory.” Watching people gloat about this is going to be like watching people gloat over winning a plastic fake turd on a game show.
Well lets look at why cloture failed and by such a heavy margin.
Two main reasons came into play.
First the senators were hearing it loud and clear from the voters
Second if cloture had passed the only amendements that would have been able to be considered in the 30 hour window were the 21 remaining amendmendts in Reid’s cluster bomb amendment package.
If you look at these amendments most would have failed due to their content.
Reid being Speaker had priority for amendments under senate rules and each of his amendments would have to be considered in order before another amendment could surface.
So essentially the bill was nearly frozen at it’s current state and furthur “improvement” was slim to none in chance.
In fact with only 30 hours after cloture, it was doubtful that all of Reids amendments would even come up for consideration and the most likely to fail were first in the list.
The traitors lost one more time.
I start to to be optimistic about the fate of this great country, again!!!!
The traitors lost one more time.
I start to to be optimistic about the fate of this great country, again!!!!
Aitch, no one is “gloating” over this. We are all very aware that our government has let us down when it comes to enforcing our laws for the last 42 years. Now we are insisting that they do what they promised us they would do in both 1965 and especially 1986. Stop the bleeding then bandage the wound.
Are you confortable with a 1,000 page bill that would have been a judical nightmare? I’m not. Are you happy with giving illegals in-state tuition while denying it to American citizens who live in another state? I’m not. Are you happy with a system that says if you break the law you will be rewarded? If so, let’s just give anmenty to all murders, then we will have no more murderers.
No one is gloating. We view this as a beginning to force our government to keep their promises that they have made for 40 years and did nothing. Doing nothing IS the status quo. That is what needs to end. Not shoving a racially preferenced bill down our throats.
….but just winning a plastic turd seems more desirable than having one rammed down your throat…
Repubs killing their party….what are the Dem naysayers doing…lending diversity?
“The traitors lost one more time.
I start to to be optimistic about the fate of this great country, again!!!! ”
Well that will be helpful in getting the party to come together. I just pray Justicve Stevens retires and there is something to rally around
Satrist – got it. Thanks.
Here’s the thing about the ongoing “debate” such as it is. The Talkers have grossly and maliciously misrepresented the President’s position and many of the details of the bill that were on the table. They failed to point out any of the measures that had already been taken by GWB, etc. They succeeded in painting the administration as sinister and incompetent, thus directly assisting our internal & external enemies. I think as this plays out, some genuine confusion will emerge among the “middle folks” who took the loudmouths word as gospel. And we won’t know until election day 2008, where the silent majority decides to put its trust.
Example, when I read the report above from Retire05 about Kay Bailey H’s speech, I think to myself: huh? I thought that was all the stuff you guys were supposed to be working out in this bill… but it had to be killed… why? The only guy who’s been consistent throughout is GWB, but he’s been marked as evil incarnate by the people on my own side of the aisle. Again…huh? And now they’re going wobbly on the war at the same time? A lot of damage has been done on the road to today’s “victory” I am afraid. It’ll be interesting to see how the loudmouths attempt to regain their composure.
I would say the test is more…will the people who tried to cut-off debate and ram this bill down America’s throat….accept their defeat should it happen and work to make a new bill that would garner more support? Or will they resort to calling names, and playing chicken-little?
This bill failed, because THIS is what these back room, dealing, Kennedy sychophants, tried to pull off:
All illegal aliens who claim to have been in the United States since January 1, 2007 would have up to two years to appear at an U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) office, drop off a completed application for a “Z†visa, pay a $1,000 fine (plus $500 for each spouse, child, and parent living here illegally with them) and submit their fingerprints. USCIS would attempt to check their fingerprints against one or more criminal databases and, as long as fewer than three misdemeanors and no felonies showed up within 24 hours, USCIS would be required to grant them “probationary†amnesty in the form of a work permit and legal permission to remain in the United States until their Z visa application was adjudicated.
and because it included this:
In case one amnesty is not sufficient, the proposal also includes both the DREAM Act amnesty for illegal aliens who graduate from U.S. high schools and the AgJOBS amnesty for 1.5 million illegal alien agricultural workers.
anybody know what the “DREAM” act was?
Any ILLEGAL, that was magically made “Legal” overnight, and went and who did not have a High School education; if they went back to HS, and got their Degree, they would be given a FREE COLLEGE EDUCATION on the US Taxpayer!
That’s what the “DREAM” act was!
I KNEW I should’ve never endured a 19 month seperation, and paid over $10,000, and brought my wife over here LEGALLY!
I should’ve flown her to Mexico City, and paid some “mule” $6K, to smuggler across the Rio Grande..
and the bill also included THIS:
The employers of these newly amnestied aliens also would receive amnesty under the proposal. They would not be subject to fines or prosecution either for hiring the illegal aliens or for any tax fraud committed as a result.
and this:
Issuance of the Z visas, along with a new category of “Y†temporary foreign workers visas (see below), would be put on hold until the Secretary of Homeland Security could certify to the President that a series of “triggers†had been met:
Customs and Border Protection must have hired (not trained or deployed) a total of 18,000 Border Patrol agents;
The Department of Homeland Security must have installed 370 miles of border fence (about half the total miles of fencing required by the law passed by Congress and signed by the President at the end of the last Congress), along with some vehicle barriers and radar and camera towers, and deployed at least four unmanned aerial vehicles;
Immigration and Customs Enforcement must have 27,500 detention beds (the number it has now) and DHS must continue to detain removable aliens apprehended along the southern border;
DHS must have the tools to prevent illegal aliens from obtaining jobs, including the establishment of (though not the widespread use of) identification standards (presumably like those required by past laws, including the REAL ID Act) and an electronic work eligibility verification system (like the Basic Pilot); and
USCIS must be “processing and adjudicating in a timely manner†Z visa applications (since these are not supposed to be issued until the triggers are met, apparently, USCIS would be deciding them and saving them for later issuance).
and these “points” were also in the bill (h/t CQ Bog) (some actually good, but most BAD!)
POINT 1: Page 21, lines 12-16, apparently reinstated the 24-hour limit on probationary background checks. Remember when they promised to fix that so that no one would get a probationary card without passing the full background check? I guess they broke that promise.
POINT 2: Page 29, lines 12-end: The Z-visa has unlimited 4-year terms. I don’t think this is a change, but shouldn’t the immigrant at some point actually immigrate?
POINT 3: Page 33, lines 19-25: Z-visa non-immigrants over the age of 65 are not expected to maintain employment in order to remain eligible to be in the US. Again, why would they be here if they’re not working and not applying for a regular immigration status?
POINT 4: Page 48, lines 8-14: Interesting method here to ensure that Z-visa non-immigrants don’t get preferential treatment. The regulations set up a timing mechanism so that no Z-visa immigrants can file for permanent residency until 30 days after eligibility for those who applied for normal immigration on May 1, 2005. That means that illegals can’t “cut in line” ahead of anyone who applied on that date or before, but can be put ahead of legal immigrants who applied in the last two years.
POINT 5: Page 61, entire page: The language has changed in this section to allow access for all law-enforcement activity to the data gleaned from applications. Before, it was restricted to just immigration enforcement and national-security activities.
POINT 6: Page 67, lines 7-11: 80% of all penalties paid by the applicants will come through installment plans. I understand the need for this, but it puts the federal government on the hook for managing a payment system for 12 million new people, along with all of the other mandates in this bill.
POINT 7: Page 69, line 20: The DREAM Act, providing scholarships for the children of illegal immigrants, still exists in the bill.
POINT 8: Page 89-90, lines 22-04: The 24-hour limit on background checks still holds within the Ag Workers section (the temporary guest worker program). If it takes longer than 24 hours, they get their credentials. (h/t: commenter Redherkey)
POINT 9: Page 92, lines 14-15: Do I read this correctly? The new limit on guest-worker visas is now 1,500,000 — not counting dependent Z-A visas? Wasn’t this originally 400,000 and reduced by half later?
POINT 10: Pages 169-170: The employer fines seem rather daunting. The first tier fine for employing an illegal will be $5,000 per occurence. If an employer has been fined in the past for employing an illegal alien, it escalates to $10,000, and on up to $75,000 per occurence. If the ICE decides to enforce the law on employers — still a rather open point — it could get very expensive. I wonder if that applies to corporations as a whole, or each location separately.
POINT 11: Pages 227-8: The temporary worker program gets fleshed out more specifically here, and it appears to have a limit of 180,000 for “Y-visa nonimmigrants.” If so, what are the Z-A visas, and why do they have a cap of 1,500,000?
POINT 12: Page 276: This is an amendment that forces any probationary status to wait until after the security triggers have been met. It seems to me that this is another example of the many cross purposes of this bill, and it will serve to confuse both backers and opponents of this bill.
The also added an amendment yesterday, that allowed the suddenly “Legal” ILLEGALS, to sue American Employers for discrimination, IF they were not hired FIRST, before native born Americans, for jobs!
Yep, your “Representatives” at work!
Here’s an item to add to the Victory checklist, found in The Corner. Call me a lame brain or a mindless BushBot, but this leaves me in a state of stunned confusion with knots in my stomach… didn’t expect victory to feel so much like The Flu:
2008 Observation of the Day [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
An e-mail: “The real victory today for conservatives is that now all the presidential candidates on our side are free to run against Bush — they’ve just robbed the Dems’ of their most potent weapon.”
Dale
Sorry to say but I believe you may be wrong on one point.
I do not recall the Dream section being free college education, by my recollection it was instead giving them in state tuition rates.
I also note that the discount from out of state rates in many cases would almost offset the “fines” paid for their zcards.
SallyVee: I don’t know what you mean exactly by “victory checklist”; I’m not sure if you’re serious or being sarcastic?
Me, I too think it is a sad day; this is NOT a “victory”; this is sad!
It is sad, that a Senate, so out of touch with it’s constituents, tried to concoct a bill in backrooms, violate parlimentary procedures, stifle debate, limit dissent, obfruscate the true extent of the deception and giveaways they were about to soak the American people with, prevent the true nature of the bill from ever becoming public, ram it down the throat of a gullible and usually not-paying-attention public!
It is sad that supporters of this bill, including the President, Senators, and “others”, decided from the outset to attack and call people names, that are their BIGGEST SUPPORTERS!
It is sad, that a certain segment of people, are so afraid of the system, that they think it is better to accept a bill that is fatally flawed, rather than actually try to work out incremental, mini-steps, that could in fact, correct the mess that we currently have.
It is sad that rather than expose the manure that was being shovelled our way to the light of day; people labelled those of us, who actually SUPORTED Legal Immigration, a Guest Worker Program, etc., but wanted some of the most obvious and egregious problems discussed, and debated, immediately labelled us “immigration hypochondriacs” and “right wingers’ and bigots and racists, etc.
It is a sad day, I admit, because this is no “victory”
We NEED comprehensive Immigration Reform, a Sane LEGAL Guest worker program; MANY MORE H1-B Visas for Technical Talent; a verifiable Worker Program for Agi-Business and Construction Workers, who we NEED; SECURE BORDERS; a way to find and hunt down and deport Felons and Sex Offenders and Jihadis; Painful, and Enforceable Workplace Hiring practices, etc.
But the sadest thing of all is, is that the main reason this bill failed, is NOT because, as the critics of us Critics say because we are Anti-Mexican/Hispanic/bigots/racists, etc.; NO, this bill failed not because of that, it failed because the American Voter doesn’t trust their OWN GOVERNMENT! Their Own Senators, and on this issue, their own President.
This has nothing to do with us in general, being Anti-Hispanic, Anti-Mexican, Anti-immigrant; though all those nuts did come out, and people like AJ focused on them, to sell his “take” on the bill!
No, this bill failed, because your average American realized, that they’ve been sold a bill of goods on Immigration by the Kennedy-clowns in 1965 and 1986, and we about to be sold another bill go crap; and the American voter had had enough; we were not going to be FOOLED again; this was a demonstrable lack of Faith, in the ability and will and integrity of our own Government, to do the RIGHT THING!
And they worked very hard, to earn that lack of faith, by the way!
That’s why this bill failed, and that’s why it’s a “sad day”; it is no “victory”, I concur!
SallyVee
The key will be this. There is a lot of money made by political groups on the right on this immigration issue. IT is the cash cow that keeps on giving. We shall see if the rethoric falls down to repsectable levels and it is sane. If not then we shall suffer lossees.
Now we have got to mitigate the damage. The only hope is that whoever is nominated ont he GOP side can do that. Gulliani can salvage it. Huckabee can Salvage it. May just maybe Fred Thompson. THompson even though he was against the bill was careful in his remarks.
Mrs Lopez at NRO is at times cluessless I hate to say. She is much more interested it seems in going after “rinos” than the Dems at times. Running against Bush as a Republican will not produce any good results in the end. Also Mrs Lopez will be the first to demand that Bush do X over the next year and half at the same time talking about the great “Divorce”.
BUsh will not just fade away. HE is lameducked that is true. But if Conservatives of the far right wish to divorce themselves from Bush they might just find out that he might make deals without them.