The title of this post says it all, but the NY Times elaborates:
Senate leaders reached agreement Thursday on a broad, bipartisan compromise that would put the vast majority of the nation’s estimated 11 million illegal immigrants on a path to citizenship, but its prospects for passage grew more uncertain as Republicans and Democrats clashed late into the night over parliamentary procedure.
Both sides said that without a quick resolution of the differences they would not have a vote on the final legislation before Congress leaves for its spring recess on Friday, raising the possibility that the painstakingly negotiated compromise might unravel as it is exposed to intense political scrutiny during the two-week Congressional break.
You just get thefeeling reading the news these days that the President’s legislative agenda, good or bad, is simply dead. President Bush is a lame duck, the Republicans are nervous and appearing more rudderless than usual, and I doubt anything major (or even minor) will happen in the short term.
Mr Furious
Good. I haven’t liked ANY of the plans that have been floated on this topic.
Mr Furious
So, John. Feel like weighing in on the two previous threads?
ppGaz
Ducks.
They’re goooood eatin’!
KC
No, John, he is not a lame duck. He’s actually working quite strongly to enact a vision of executive power quite above anything I’ve ever seen. And, I hate to say it, he is being quite successful at it, especially when one considers that his own party was once up in arms about the extent and abuse of another recent president’s executive power claims. As someone who first really began to turn on this president when he put forward an executive order to upend the law on presidential records, I guess I see him as doing exactly what he wants to do–whatever he pleases.
ppGaz
All hail the successful, powerful George Bush! I hope he keeps doing it, KC.
VidaLoca
Does immigration reform even rise to the level of being on the “President’s legislative agenda”? IR always seemed to me to represent more of a wedge issue driven by right-wing radio talkshow hosts and right-wing Congressional reps who needed something (anything) to show to their base as an “accomplishment” after 5 years of misrule. Bush’s role in it was to try to paste in a compromise that would prevent the national GOP from facing the same kind of debacle that the California GOP faced in the wake of Proposition 187 a few years back.
If that seems one-sided, ask yourself this: why would Bush himself care about IR at this stage of his administration? The only thing that really matters to him, is him.
Which is why I agree with KC: what he does care about it power.
DougJ
What’s important is that the country isn’t being run by the screamers and windsurfers of the Democratic party.
norbizness
The Bush-Fox team have no desire whatsoever to actually curtail illegal immigration; the more off-the-books drones, the better for corporate America seeking to depress labor costs and the more $ that flows back to Mexico. To be clear, I mind the first and don’t mind the second. He’s probably willing to stay with the status quo, even if it makes his party of strength and security look like hypocrites when it comes to ridiculously porous borders.
The recently-killed bill was ridiculous, though. Three tiers of illegal immigrants? All dependent on how long they had been in the country? Well, sure. They’re called “undocumented” because they’ve got all sorts of documents documenting every manner of documentable fact, Einstein(s)!
norbizness
Oh, and that’s Vicente Fox, former head of Coca-Cola Mexico, not the Fox News Network. Additionally, when the major themes of his recent non-Iraq town hall events have been health savings accounts and SS reform, you know he’s counting the hours until he gets to escape to Crawford again.
stickler
The President’s agenda is dead in the water; his party is demoralized and splintered; the country no longer trusts him.
Gee, I wonder what sort of high-risk gambit might work to galvanize the nation behind their courageous Leader? If only there were some horrible foreign threat that could be Shock-N-Awed by our splendid Air Force and Navy…
norbizness
Switzerland! They’re like The Beige Menace from the Neutral Planet!
OnTheOther Hand
“I doubt anything major (or even minor) will happen in the short term.”
I dunno. He’s capable of all sorts of mischief.
OnTheOther Hand
Forgot to add:
Bush don’t need no stinking legislaion
capelza
So I can’t use “with what ARMY?”…sneaky devil.
D. Mason
I guess that depends on what you mean by “The President’s agenda”. If you mean the tax cuts for the rich, and anti-porn taskforces. Then yeah, that train is derailed… But I call those things his pet projects. If on the other hand you mean agenda in the same way as me… You know, looting the economy and driving the country into the ground, I say that’s right on track and may be pulling into the station anytime now.
The Other Steve
What’s amazing is that this bill died because of a Republican Filibuster.
That really shows you just how incompetent even Bill Frist is. A Lame Duck President, and a Republican Congress running scared of it’s own shadow.
The Other Steve
Where’s the beer and wine thread?
Support our friends… DRINK GEORGIAN AND MOLODOVAN WINE!
james richardson
Who’s this guy John Cole who posted this post on this blog? I never see him here. Once, long ago maybe. I thought this was Tim F.’s blog.
(/snark)
Brian
Bush sold out with this legislation encouraging guest workers. It’s best if nothing happens, that we keep the status quo regarding illegal immigration. This legislation passing would have worsened the situation.
It’s best if Bush just does nothing for the rest of his term, at least domestically. Just ride out his term, focus on Iraq and Iran, until a better Republican can get elected in 2008.
As for this election, Democrats and Republicans are evenly united on this immigration “reform” issue, so there’s no polarization from what I can tell. If this bill were to have passed, or if it passes in some future iteration of the same, all Congressmen and women should fear for their seats. People are pissed.
Faux News
Excellent point, but I thought Scary John Kerry liked snowboarding as well.
Pb
Behold, the power of partisan politics, Presidential approval ratings, and upcoming elections. In 2005, the Democrats managed to derail Social Security ‘reform’, and now in 2006, the Republicans have stalled immigration reform.
The interesting thing about the immigration issue, incidentally, is that it’s a huge wedge issue for *both* parties, and the American people disagree with the common wisdom of the party leadership. Politically speaking, of all the issues to tackle, this is one of the toughest to resolve. Also, the consequences of resolving it (one way or another) have not been adequately explained to the American people–but what else is new.
Brian
Just released, a transcript of a phone call the president made to Cynthia McKinney.
Faux News
Whitehouse.org is just pure gold! :-)
Punchy
It’s a wicked logic train. The farther his numbers fall, the more lame he becomes. Less power. The less power he legally has becomes supplanted by going around the law. First NSA, next physical warrantless searches, soon Diebold, and after Diebold, a permanent Republican rule. Thus, the more he’s disliked, the better chance we’ll see his type forever.
Yeah, I’m pessimistic.
Paddy O'Shea
This immigration bill died because the Republicans can’t politically afford to give up their most potent wedge issue going into the elections this November. They are that desperate.
The gloves are coming off. You’re going to see the most racially charged election since George Wallace circa 1968.
Somewhere David Duke is feeling very misunderstood.
Brian
Why does it have to be racially charged? Is it because everything is seen through a lens of race/gender politics? (hat tip, Cynthia McKinney)
norbizness
And remember, there’s the more boring, but more effective, route of using political hacks to gut the enforcement functions of government agencies, thereby assuring another couple of years of corporate windfall (apart from the now-regressive tax structure) while the President dicks around in Shithole, Wyoming with a (mostly) handpicked audience.
Par R
Good News, Folks! A new congressional scandal is about to break that will make the Abramoff scandal seem like small potatoes. The new one involves at its center a 12-term congressman, Alan Mollohan who sits on the House Appropriations Committee, a panel that Mr. Abramoff once dubbed the “favor factory.” Since 2000, Mollohan has steered some $200 million of earmarks to groups, most of whom are run by people who contribute regularly to Mr. Moolohan’s campaigns, PACs and family foundation. Federal prosecutors have opened an investigation.
Oh, did I mention that Congressman Mollohan is a Democrat, a part of that Party’s Culture of Growing Corruption?
Faux News
Thank God Republicans in Congress haven’t done anything like that! Whew.
D. Mason
Since I have read no more about this story that what you posted here I cant really comment on it specifically. Still, I have no doubt that there are some corrupt Democrats kicking around. That being said, I would always prefer a culture of growing corruption to a culture of rampant corruption.
SeesThroughIt
“I hate these filthy neutrals, Kif! With enemies, you know where you stand, but with neutrals, who knows? It sickens me!’
“What makes a man turn neutral? Lust for gold? Power? Or were you just born with a heart full of neutrality?”
I really don’t want to denigrate the truly awesome character that is Zapp Branigan by drawing an equivalence between him and Bush, but “Rock crushes scissors! But paper covers rock…and scissors cuts paper! Kif, we have a conundrum…” is a very Dubya-esque moment.
Brian
I smell a new Democratic campaign slogan:
“Vote for us. We’re a little less corrupt than the GOP”
VidaLoca
Par,
I can’t even get worked up enough to ask you for a cite. It’s not like you found the Holy Grail that’ll restore the credibility of the Congressional GOP, that train has already left.
Short story on Mollohan: if there’s enough evidence for a trial, charge him and try him. If he’s guilty, jail him.
Look over there! A jackalope! And just in time, too!
Anderson
Republican strategy:
(1) Propose legislation giving every child in the U.S. a pony.
(2) Allow Dems to defeat same.
(3) Run ads in October: WHY DON’T THE DEMOCRATS WANT YOUR CHILD TO HAVE A PONY?
james richardson
par r:
good. send him up, charge him, convict him, watch democrats denounce him.
then watch republicans cover up their scandals and change the rules to allow the guilty more power.
it will make us look that much better in november.
Par R
VidaLoca, I should have added that other members of Congressman Mollohan’s party are also under investigation. I do believe that Brian may have a winning slogan there: “Vote for us. We’re a little less corrupt than the GOP”
VidaLoca
Par —
I’ll even go so far as to entertain the hypothesis that part of the reason the Democrats have been less than active in filing charges against some of the Republican ethics violations is that they were afraid of blowback like this.
It doesn’t matter. Charge them all.
Heh. If that happens I’ll leave you to explain it to the rest of us.
Pb
Wow.
The nutsJohn’s friends over at Red State have outdone themselves this time. Apparently everything Bush has done for the first five years of his term was a resounding success, and the only thing pissing them off now is *immigration*. Read it all if you can stand to–this is the mind of the modern Bush cultist.Pb
Par R,
Faux News,
Bridge To Nowhere, baby!
LITBMueller
Pb, this is my favorite line from the comments over at RedState:
Now THAT is some powerful Kool Aid!!!! :)
Tony Alva
Good, I’m glad. Now let’s build the freakin’ wall and THEN deal with what we’re going to do about the rest. All solutions start with doing just this, why are wasting our time talking ourselves out of it. We can put a man on the moon, but we can’t build a wall? Find the money, borrow Israel’s engineering drawings, and build it. Charles Krauthammer sums it up best in the WP today. Check it out.
Brian
Saw the Krauthammer piece. Finally, a high-profile commentator willing to talk about a wall without fear of reprisal. And I agree with him; 1,2,3 walls…whatever.
Get ‘er done. Until we do, we’re not serious about taking control of this immigration problem.
Mark’s essay over on RedState, the one being ridiculed on this thread, highlights the distinction between legal and illegal immigration that’s being neglected by the readers here. He uses examples of legal immigrants who’re getting shafted by this sham of a policy we have.
Davebo
Off topic.
But Jeff Goldstein shows that being able to swallow a broomstick is not necessarily enough to get your book published.
http://www.proteinwisdom.com/index.php/weblog/entry/20119/#comments
LITBMueller
Yes! Build a wall! And oultaw shovels!!!!
Derrrrrrrr…..
Notice what nobody has suggested in Congress: actually levying large fines on those who hire illegal aliens, creating more effective rules and an enforcement structure to make sure such fines are paid, or actually increasing the minimum wage in this county to something livable so more people would be willing to “do the jobs Americans just don’t wanna do.”
Cuz, God forbid we do anything that American business won’t like!
Has it occurred to anyone on the right that the reason why Congress hasn’t done anything to better secure our border and stem the tide of illegal immigration, and the reason why this President supports a guest worker program, depite the security concerns heightened by 9/11, is because they actually want American business to have a source of cheap labor? Because they don’t want to piss off their corporate masters?
D. Mason
It certainly occured to me.
SeesThroughIt
“Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!*”
*(And then send it to us a few decades later–we’re gonna need it!)
fwiffo
Republicans’ corporate contributors will never allow a wall to be built, it would deprive them of their sub-minimum-wage workforce.
It’s so funny that the usual response to the illegal immigration issue is to make legal immigration more difficult and complicated. Brilliant.
Brian
There’s an easier way to get cheap labor. Do away with the minimum wage. It’ll do away with the need for illegals, or would at least show us what jobs Americans REALLY don’t want to do.
Alternatively, build a wall (or more) and give amnesty to existing illegals and let them start enjoying the minimum wage. Amnesty without the wall, or some form of control of future immigrants, is amnesty leading to yet more amnesty, rendering us an open-border country and one that should just do away with any laws of sovereignty.
Brian
That assumes that all legal immigration comes over the U.S. – Mexico border. It doesn’t. People wait years in countries much farther away for the right to come here legally. How is a wall any more formidable than an ocean?
jg
I’m sure all the mexicans who previously had planned to sneak in to america through tunnels and crossing deserts will just give up when they hear there’s a wall.
Pb
Err, yeah. Build a wall across the Mexican border. And the Canadian border. And don’t forget to finally step up enforcement along all our waterways, airports, coastlines, … Actually you know what? Why not just build one big dome over the entire United States? That’s about as realistic, and a lot simpler.
Look, we can’t even build a proper wall around New Orleans–that’s *one city*. There’s no way we’ll be able to do it for the whole country. I’m sure there are some smart ways that we can protect the United States from terrorism and help control immigration. But the ‘wall’ is not it.
Brian
jg,
A wall may not be a panacea, but it will certainly cut off the majority of the flow and make it easier to put resources toward locating other entry points, like tunnels.
We can’t allocate enough human resources to control the border.
The Other Steve
Oh, please… you made me spit soda out of my nose on that one.
A 700 mile wall along the Mexican border? You think that’s all that is needed to stop illegal immigration?
The only thing that wall is going to do is give a wall building company a giant profit margin for 2007. That’s it. They’ll probably even hire illegal immigrants to help build it.
As long as the companies can hire illegals without penalty, there are going to be illegals here. The attraction is too great, both for those who want the jobs, and those who want the cheap labor.
Hell, you’d have thought after they raided those last year, we’d have figured this out. Apparently not.
Brian
You contradict yourself. If it’s not illegal, why would anyone get raided?
The approach has to be multi-faceted. Wall to prevent easy entry, laws against employers that are enforced as felonies, relaxed rules on law enforcement being able to retain illegals, and more stringent rules on what’s expected of citizens.
The Other Steve
Honestly, I think this demonstrates the stupidity of Republicans that they still think the minimum wage is applicable.
Last year after Katrina, one of the dumbest things the Whitehouse did was declare that the minimum wage no longer applied in the Gulf Coast. This was seconded in stupidity only by the fact that the Democrats whined about it.
The reality was quite different. The law meant absolutelly bumbfuck nothing. Burger Kings are paying out $5,000 hiring bonuses just to get people to work for them. It’s called market competition, dumbshit. A vast amount of work to be done, and a limited pool of employees. The employees are going to go where the pay is the best.
Hardly anybody works for minimum wage any more.
Again, the reason why this illegal immigration thing is so big is because there are companies who have shitty work to perform, don’t want to pay prevailing wage… but they can get illegals to do it for less, simply because the illegals don’t have much of an opportunity to say “Take this job and shove it, I ain’t working for you no more.” They’ll take what they can get, and are happy because it’s more than they can make back home.
The Other Steve
It’s only illegal if you knowingly hire illegal immigrants.
In Florida they were running slave labor camps, which is also illegal regardless.
But Wal-Mart, who got in trouble last year for using illegals to clean their stories copped out. They said they didn’t know, they subcontracted the work out. They got some bad publicity and a slap on the wrist, but that was about it.
Brian
Other Steve,
It’s clear you’ve made your mind up on tis, and there’s no problem, therefore no need for a solution.
A lot of people disagree with you, Democrats and Republicans. It’s not a polarized issue, really. We’re not talking about abortion here.
Sit back and enjoy your pink could. The more intelligent members of our society will handle this one while you sit it out.
jg
But the tunnels wil be under the wall in places we can’t patrol, which is the reason we built the wall. This won’t stop shit. This is the same half assed thinking that says making drugs illegal will end the drug problem. Same as thinking you can stop the flow of illegal drugs into the country by putting up checkpoints. As long as there is demand someone will find a way to get it done. As long as we want drugs they will find there way here. As long as we have cheap labor the immigrants will come here.
Why don’t we just invade mexico and set up an american style democracy and economy. That way they won’t want to come here. It may sound strange or unhinged but is it that far a leap from what we’re doing in Iraq. Let’s keep them there so we don’t have to kick them out of here.
LITBMueller
Halliburton.
’nuff said.
Pb
jg,
That’s why we’ll need to build thousands of miles of *moat* as well. Also… sharks with frickin’ *laser beams* on their heads.
The Other Steve
Here’s some talk about Tyson, who got busted for recruiting illegal immigrants.
Tyson link
Again, knowingly hiring is illegal. This quote is interesting:
The law needs to change. Anybody who hires an illegal immigrant get’s smacked with a $50,000 fine per person, per year of employment. Knowingly or not.
This will force the onus on the employers to verify papers.
The Democrats and Republicans can go to bloody hell on this one. No Guest Worker program, either. And get rid of the damn H1-B too. We stop bringing in illegals and guest workers, we can increase the number of legal immigrants we accept from all over the world. Give people who want to be here because it’s America, a chance to be here and become citizens.
Skip
The bill died because nobody wanted to give Frist a “victory.” Not even many Republicans.
Lott’s allies, of which there are many, did as much to scotch this as the democrats.
The Other Steve
I think it’s clear you are a dumb fuck.
Pb
Why don’t we just let Texas secede, and let them figure it out. Of course, then we’d have illegal Texans sneaking into the US… :)
Pb
The Other Steve,
The Republicans can’t do that, though–it might actually work!
The Other Steve
Lott may have played some part. But from what I’ve read the bill was backed by the majority of Democrats.
This thing died because the Republicans were trying to pass poison pill amendments, effectively gutting it and making it a bad bill.
Although I’m still opposed to any bill which reintroduces the Bracero Program
The Other Steve
That’s right. Because Republicans aren’t interested in actually solving any problems. They just want to maintain the status quo, so they can keep campaigning on it year after year.
That’s why Brian wants to build a wall. He knows it won’t solve the problem, but it gives him an opportunity to spend $500 billion or so of our tax dollars, while he invests in wall building companies and makes a fortune. Then in 10 years he can come back again and whine about how we have to stop illegal immigration by building a Moat with Sharks with fricking laser beams. So we can spend another $500 billion, while he invests in companies that build moats and raise sharks.
That’s the Republican way.
They think Government exists to pad their wallet.
Pb
The Other Steve,
You’re right that their policies are greed-based (and compassion-free!). Unfortunately, if their foreign policy doesn’t kill us first, their domestic policy will ruin us–because it essentially amounts to an unsustainable pyramid scheme.
Punchy
Great idea. Works wonders. Aesthetic, useful, and quite effective.
Signed,
East Germany
ppGaz
The Republicans have no plan. They can’t even get along with their own president on this. Bill Frist can’t get his members to agree on where to have lunch.
Relax. The Inept Government is not going to do anything.
I think Brian is their chief strategist …..
Paddy O'Shea
Brian is their chief strategist? That explains the endless questions.
But why, daddy?
DougJ
Tell me you’re joking.
Bob In Pacifica
Here: http://southofheaven.typepad.com/ is my blog about earthquakes.
I haven’t stooped to offering free beer, though.
Krista
Yeah, that’ll be good for the billions of dollars worth of trade that we do with each other annually. Like the borders aren’t already slow enough.
tBone
If you’re talking about walls around D.C., I think you might be on to something there. A few years of Thunderdome-style living could really clean up Washington.
We wouldn’t even have to truck in food – Denny Hastert alone could feed a small state’s Congressional delegation for years.
fwiffo
You completely misunderstood me, or I was unclear. I wasn’t talking about a hypothetical wall, I was talking about red tape. I had a co-worker from my last job who was an immigrant from China working on getting his H1-B. The amount of pointless shit he had to go through was absurd. This was a good guy – excellent technical skills (programmer), good English, college degrees, etc. All around your ideal candidate.
But the whole process was insanely complicated. It was driving him (and us, as his employer) completely batty. Most of the regulations that were giving us so much trouble were completely and utterly pointless. And let me tell you, none of it had anything to do with national security.
It seems like every time there’s one of these rounds of immigration panic all we get is some new regulation, new fee or new paperwork that make legal immigration that much more difficult. Apparently some people can’t seem to grok that these regulations have no effect on people operating outside the law except to increase their numbers by disincentivizing the legal route.
The Other Steve
fwiffo – Agreed on the H1-B crap. We had a guy working on our project from Slovakia. He was a contractor on an H1-B. We wanted to make him a permanent because he was so good.
Couldn’t make it happen.