Posted on 01/22/2010 9:47:45 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
Markos Moulitsas Zuniga, a Democratic strategist and founder of the left-wing blog “The Daily Kos,” told reporters Thursday that “comprehensive immigration reform” legislation sponsored by Rep. Luiz Gutierrez (D-Ill.) -- which would provide a “pathway to citizenship” for illegal aliens -- has a good shot at passage this year.
But Moulitsas said that “teabaggers” and Republicans who “hate brown people” would try to push back against it.
“I think the votes want to be there in the Senate -- I think the House is fairly solid -- I think the votes want to be there,” he said of an immigration bill’s chances, “but you have this growing ‘teabagger’ movement that is going to be pushing very hard from the other side.”
Moulitsas said the issue was going to expose a rift within the Republican Party.
“It’s going to be (a) battle of wills --I think --between Republicans who realize the danger in losing the Latino vote for a generation or longer and the danger that poses in places like Arizona, New Mexico and Florida -- places that are battleground states that could be torn away from them because of demographic shifts -- and those Republicans who demand ideological purity and hate brown people and really kowtow to the Tom Tancredos of this country.”
Tancredo, a former presidential candidate and Republican member of the House of Representatives from Colorado, was a founder of the Congressional Immigration Reform Caucus in 1999, and a firm opponent of illegal immigration. Tancredo also opposed the immigration plans pushed by the Bush administration in 2006 and 2007.
Moulitsas made his comments at the liberal think-tank, the Center for American Progress (CAP), which held a panel discussion with the blogger and some of its staff called: “Next Up, Comprehensive Immigration Reform.”
Anther panelist, Andrea Nill, who writes on immigration issues for the CAP, added to the insinuations of racism, explaining that there is a network of opponents to immigration in America.
“The groups that are going to be driving it are part of this network: we call it the ‘nativist lobby,” she said.
One group she named was the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), a group that describes itself on its Web site as “an independent, nonpartisan, nonprofit research organization” and a “think tank devoted exclusively to research and policy analysis of the economic, social, demographic, fiscal, and other impacts of immigration on the United States.
But Jessica Vaughan, policy director for CIS, told CNSNews.com she would “absolutely reject the label of nativist” and said it was an example of “people who disagree with us calling us names instead of coming up with a fact-based response. That’s what happens when people aren’t getting their way.”
Vaughn added: “We’re not a lobbying organization -- we’re a research institute. Our work speaks for itself.”
“We’re animated by a pro-immigrant, low-immigration vision for immigration policy in America,” Vaughn said. “(A)nother way of putting that would be ‘fewer immigrants, but a warmer welcome.’”
Vaughn said much of her group’s work has been oriented to looking at how to make the application process better for immigrants.
“Reporting objective facts on the size and composition of our immigration flow and on the policy issues that have to do with immigration law enforcement is not necessarily anti-immigrant and I think that any reader can discern that themselves by reading what we actually say, not what they think we mean,” Vaughan told CNSNews.com.
She said that the Gutierrez bill -- the Comprehensive Immigration Reform for America’s Security and Prosperity Act -- is so far to the left that it does not register on the political spectrum.
“I don’t think it even falls on the spectrum of bills that Americans would consider to be reasonable immigration reform,” she said.
“It is a massive expansion of immigration--an amnesty for just about everyone, a decimation of immigration law enforcement, and creation of unnecessary temporary worker programs -- did I miss anything?
“The reality is that this is not something that most Americans would support,” she added.
Moulitsas and Nill, meanwhile, both said that while they liked the House bill, and it was a good starting point, the heavy legislative lifting would be left to the Senate, where Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) will begin drafting a version of the bill that could better attract bipartisan support.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has indicated that she will not push for the House to pass any immigration reform measure before the Senate does so, because she had already completed a number of legislative “heavy lifts” on health care and cap-and-trade bills that have proven politically unpopular.
The Left hates the American people.
When the American people resist the suicidal and spiritually empty collectivist koolaid the Left tries to pour down their throat, the response from the Left is to try to replace the American people with foreign nationals.
Amnesty?? SURE KOokS.... after a year in slammer for being here ILLEGALY.. then a bus trip BACK.... then they can have all the amnesty they want.. as they GET IN LINE.
Geez ... looking forward to a midnight snack.. until someone mentions the head KOOK!@!!!
They both have added nothing to the American landscape; NADA; ZILCH; ZERO.
The TEAPARTIERS are the Americans that the looozers don't understand. Typical libs. Go to hell, or wherever you're meant to reside. FNuts.
Nooooooo Markos ya POS we hate criminals......as in illegal anything.
Spin it all ya want Kos Boy......we’re on to yer BS agenda of racist crap.
I am, as are others I know, 100% for LEGAL immigration !
Shamnesty is sedition IMO.
......and Jorge Bush to lobby him for it.
Well, dipstick, the way we can prevent those states being "torn away from us" is to prevent the demographic shift.
We can and will do that by ejecting the tens of millions of illegal invaders that are filling up these states. When we're done with that they will be back to mostly white, including the original Spanish-American, multi-generational Mexican-American and Native American people. None of whom appreciate the invaders.
What's Kos's immigration status? If he wasn't born here I hope a future Republican administration kicks him out. He is a one man disaster.
With so many Americans unemployed, how can they justify immigration now?
“Will Put Brakes on Immigration”
I can only hope so.
Well .. that picture of the head Kook, Mootus Mysnotsis or whatever his name is, is quite enlightening.
Surprise, desperate dems are race-baiting again.
Time for me to go remind them they voted for a man that exploited the deaths of brown people so that his obot minions would vote for him.
Then he called for more troops.
Great point.
One of my friend’s grandkids had a passion to go to England to work and live.
He was denied a work visa due to high unemployment.
Meg Whitman has a radio spot where she asks for ideas about how to make California better. She has a "3-point plan" for jobs, education, and saving money. Thing is, all three of those areas could be boosted if the illegals were removed from the picture. Same with crime, for that matter. But it's not as if such a proposal would be taken seriously, seeing's how I hate brown people and all......
Those Kos moonbats then will have no problem supporting those illegals financially right?
This little puke served three years in the Army and only made PFC. No wonder he is a jaded little liberal fairy. I knew serious eff ups that made E-4 in less than two years, but he cannot even make it out of E-3 in three years. Says a lot.
Republicans don't have the Latino vote in the first place, so they can't lose what they don't have.
Just go ask Juan McCain, the Ayatollah of amnesty, what the Latino’s did to him when he run for president.
He looks the type who likes his own kind.
Spec/6 in just over three years.
Harmful to the environment too. The more 3rd world immigrants we take, the more waste our country produces.
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