Posted on 05/31/2007 5:32:19 PM PDT by Checkers
Another day of interviews and calls, and my overwhelming sense is that the immigration bill as drafted is as dead as dead can be. The president's speech on Tuesday had the effect of throwing gas on the flames, and the anger has multiplied, and it isn't nativist in the least.
Could the bill be saved? Only if the Republican leadership comes back with a package of amendments which it announces beforehand and insists be voted on serially and all of which must be adopted if cloture is to be invoked on the final amended version. The choice before the Democrats is whether they will accept genuine enforcement (the whole fence first, big hikes in federal law enforcement beyond the Border Patrol, a burden of proof requirement on non-Spanish speaking immigrants from countries with jihadist networks and perhaps even for gang-age Spanish speakers etc.) What happened over the past ten days was a huge shift against the bill so that the amendment package must be real reform of the reform or the dead end will be reached. John McCain knew what he was doing when he demanded a jam down --the bill has lost support with every day of scrutiny.
Expect more and more Democrats to try and keep the bill as it is because of the inferno on the right. Even lefties pushing for more family member migrations etc have got to see that unity in pushing the present version forward will splinter the GOP as surely as the Corn Laws did Peel's Tories or as Ireland did Gladstone's Liberals. If the GOP doesn't get its amendment package out and adopted, the Republican Leader has got to call a halt to the meltdown. See this story for a clue on the deep damage done to the GOP over the past few days.
At this point I take out my Harriet Miers Fan Club chater membership card and put it on the table: This push for this bill is a disaster, Mr. President. Much much worse than the Miers nomination on which you had many good arguments, or the ports deal, on which you had fewer. On this issue there is no place to stand, and you are asking your friends in the Senate to go down fighting for a bad bill. It is a bad bill because no one believes the government can conduct millions of background checks (many spokemen for the bill don't even pretend to know where the paperwork will go!). No one believes the bill will halt the next 12 million. No one believes you are going to assure the fence gets built. No one believes that the employer verification system will get done or work when some half-assed version of it does get done. No one believes that the probationary visas don't automatically convert illegal aliens with few if any rights into Due Process Clause covered legal migrants, with a Ninth Circuit ready and waiting to keep them here for decades.
No one believes passing the bill will help catch the jihadist sleepers already in the country. The constituency that has always been with you except on the ports deal --the security voter-- has left the room. If you want them back, act quickly.
This isn't a talk radio fueled shout from the far right. It isn't the Minutemen or the Tancredo people. It is the GOP faithful who don't want it, nor anything like it.
Huddle up, D.C. GOPers, and unveil a new and very different, very improved version. Couple it with the argument that Hillary is coming and this is the best we will get if we lose the White House. But the deal has to be one worth taking, not the same deal we'd get under a second President Clinton. That's why the political rebellion is here: This looks like a bill that Hillary would have sold as tough on enforcement. We can wait two years for that.
Time's awasting.
It is just not believable. Fix it or kill it
umgud’s plan
1. Secure the border
2. Real interior enforcement
3. Employee verification, match SS#’s, etc. (no national ID)
4. Employer sanctions
5. Border crossers, visa overstays banned from reentry, felony 2cnd strike
6. ID required for voting
7. No education, non-emergency medical or public assistance to illegals
8. No more anchor babies
9. Expand citizenship based on immigrant skill/education (end chain migration)
10. Provide guest worker program with application from home countries
Get these invaders out of my country!!!
There is no immigration bill I will accept that doesn’t simply say:
total shutdown of all borders and coasts.
I don’t care about anything else. Do that first, and then we’ll talk about legal immigration.
Enforce the law.
Hope he right the bill is dead as dead can be.
George Bush, starring in: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. "no more need to Hyde my huge left-leaning tendencies."
I think a good compromise on this compromise, considering that the left wants illegals to better themselves and receive freebies. And, considering how great they also think Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro are, why not gradually round the illegals up, cut deals with Chavez and Castro for new citizens, as theirs flee, to offset the deportation cost, and just ship them down to Venezuela and Cuba.
They wouldn’t have to worry about language, work, medical care, welfare or anything. After all, doesn’t the left keep telling us what a Socialist Eutopia those countries and ‘benevolent’ Dicators are?
Excellent idea!
THANK YOU HUGH!
He who hath an ear, let him hear.
Remove not the old landmark.... — Proverbs 23: 10
“Hope he right the bill is dead as dead can be.”
And if it moves, shoot it!
“umgud’s plan
1. Secure the border
2. Real interior enforcement
3. Employee verification, match SS#’s, etc. (no national ID)
4. Employer sanctions
5. Border crossers, visa overstays banned from reentry, felony 2cnd strike
6. ID required for voting
7. No education, non-emergency medical or public assistance to illegals
8. No more anchor babies
9. Expand citizenship based on immigrant skill/education (end chain migration)
10. Provide guest worker program with application from home countries”
Good plan!
Rumor has it he’s hittin’ the bottle again....I’m wondering whether it’s true now.
Video is on Youtube.
>>the whole fence first, big hikes in federal law enforcement beyond the Border Patrol, a burden of proof requirement on non-Spanish speaking immigrants from countries with jihadist networks and perhaps even for gang-age Spanish speakers etc.<<
That’s a good start, but not nearly good enough. Maybe HH knows that, and he didn’t have room to list all the fatal flaws. I don’t think we should even talk about legalization until we have proof positive that enforcement will work. Not a simple thumbs up from Chertoff or anyone in the administration. There needs to be real, independent certification, a veto for someone other than the fox to certify that the henhouse is safe.
Kick out illegals who have even one DUI. Take out the section about the SPP. This bill is pathetic. It needs more than a few fixes — it needs to be a good faith, real bill, not a bunch of frauds written to resemble a bill.
I’m glad to see this from Mr. Hewitt. I listened to Medved today and he was for the “piece of sh*t” as Rep. Boehner called it.
I've banned Medved from my radio forever - I cannot take limp-wristed republicanism anymore.
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