Posted on 07/25/2014 11:41:33 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Overpromising? Not really. Obama himself allegedly threw around numbers in the millions when he spoke to immigration activists about this a few weeks ago.
Politico has a fine reminder today that everything he says, including what he says about his own presidential powers, can be trusted only up until the moment when the politics of the situation change and not a second longer.
President Barack Obama insisted for years that he had absolutely no legal authority — none whatsoever, zero, zilch — to slow deportations on a broad scale…
Obama’s pledge to use his executive powers by the end of the summer marked both a dramatic reversal in rhetoric and a major strategic shift on immigration. The president is no longer emphasizing his own powerlessness but rather his determination “to fix as much of our immigration system as I can on my own, without Congress.”…
Even immigrant rights advocates, who were on the receiving end of the White House denials for years, were surprised by his abrupt and enthusiastic move toward executive action in June after House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) ruled out a legislative overhaul of immigration this year. Activists had gotten so fed up in recent months that some tagged the president as the “deporter-in-chief” and demanded that he shift immediately from a legislative strategy to an administrative one.
“The way they talked about it was, ‘There’s nothing we can do, only Congress can solve it, we don’t have the authority,’” said Lorella Praeli, director of advocacy and policy for United We Dream. “That is very different from what they are saying today. It is completely different.”
So it is. Either he was lying all along, falsely claiming he believed his powers were modest in the name of enticing Republicans into an amnesty deal that would give the White House bipartisan cover, or he’s lying now but is determined to push ahead because he’s decided that the politics of a mass executive amnesty are a net positive for Democrats long-term. Watch the second clip below, from last November, when a heckler demanded that he use his executive authority to legalize the untold millions of adult illegals inside the U.S. I can’t, said O. We’re a nation of laws. We are?
The deeper mystery is why he thinks this is a political winner now for Democrats. The long-term game is obvious — pander to Latinos as much as possible — but the short-term angle is confounding, especially with anxiety about the border crisis high. Case in point:
According to the poll, 51% now say the government’s focus, when it comes to immigration policy, should be formulating a plan to stop the flow of undocumented immigrants. Forty-five percent say the top priority should be developing a plan that would allow undocumented immigrants who have jobs to become legal residents.
That’s a change from February, when Americans said 54%-41% that legal status trumped border security.
With public sentiment moving towards security and away from legalization, he’s going to drop an amnesty atomic bomb for millions of illegals right before the midterms? C’mon. Gutierrez gets asked about that in the first clip and doesn’t even contest that the politics are dodgy. His answer is that we can’t put politics above doing what’s right for migrants, which is precisely what you’d expect a guy whose only loyalty is to “the immigrant community” to say. But what about O? At a minimum, if he’s really thinking about bringing America’s refugee apparatus to Central America to make immigration faster and safer for child migrants, you’d think he’d want to hold off on any political sudden moves for illegals who are already here. Mickey Kaus argues, in fact, that Obama’s painted himself into a corner: If he goes big on executive amnesty now, he might doom red-state Democrats in November. If, despite his promises, he goes small, Gutierrez will be back on MSNBC the next day blubbering about Obama’s final betrayal or whatever. Kaus thinks O will have no choice but to take the medium approach, something short of the five million Gutierrez wants but with a promise to finish the job and amnestize the rest of the group next year when the politics aren’t quite so hot. Unless the White House has data suggesting that a big amnesty now will send turnout by Latino voters this fall skyrocketing, I don’t see how he can follow any other approach.
(VIDEO-AT-LINK)
5 million times ten. Then chain migration. Fundemental transformation complete. 50,000,000 socialist loving illegals now can out vote anyone. Taxday is April 15th.
Enough to give him a solid electoral win.
Those of us that voted for someone else did not.
John Fox: "I think scoring points, more than the other team, is the key."
My only answer is to boycott, to the best of our ability, companies that promote leftist causes, even if it means choosing foreign over American. Likewise, choosing products made in red states may also help our cause.
I can only cast one vote..
The rats.. as many as they want.
The president’s pardon power is, pracrtically, unlimited with regard to federal crimes. Impeachment would not reverse any pardon.
Politically, it would have to be done after the election but promised beforehand.
A terrible but fascinating idea.
I understand your frustration. We have another weapon, our spending dollars. Avoid companies that promote leftists causes, and try to buy products made in red states, to the best of our ability. Starve the beast, and we might be able to make a difference.
See also: Democratic Party Congressional Progressive Caucus
Luis Gutierrez was born in Chicago on December 10, 1953, to parents of Puerto Rican ancestry. After graduating with an English degree from Northeastern Illinois University in 1977, he spent approximately seven years working variously as a cab driver, schoolteacher, community activist, and social worker.
From 1984-86 Gutierrez, a Democrat, served as an advisor to Mayor Harold Washington of Chicago. In 1986 Gutierrez was elected alderman of that city's mostly-Hispanic 26th Ward. At the time, he was a member of the Puerto Rican Socialist Party, a Marxist-Leninist entity.
In 1992 Gutierrez won a seat in the U.S. Congress, representing the newly formed Fourth District of Illinois. Gerrymandered from neighborhoods and suburbs west of downtown Chicago, this bizarrely shaped, 75-percent Latino district was designed by Democrats not only to guarantee the area a Latino Representative in Congress, but also to concentrate so many Latinos into a single district that they would pose little threat of unseating any black Democrat in the vicinity. Since then, Gutierrez has been re-elected every two years to the House of Representatives, where he is a member of both the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and the Congressional Progressive Caucus. His political campaigns have drawn significant support from the Democratic Socialists of America.
In the mid-1990s, Gutierrez developed close ties to the pro-socialist New Party in Chicago. In 1995-96 he was a board of directors member of Illinois Public Action, the state's largest public-interest organization, along with such notables as Robert Creamer, Lane Evans, Alice Palmer, Jan Schakowsky, and Quentin Young. And in 1997 Gutierrez served on the board of Citizen Action of Illinois.
In 1999 Gutierrez collaborated with fellow Progressive Caucus members Jose Serrano and Nydia Velazquez to pressure President Bill Clinton (through Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder) to free 16 convicted FALN terrorists. For details, click here.
During his years in Congress, Gutierrez has cultivated a reputation as the Democratic Party's leading strategist and spokesperson on immigration issues, and has been at the forefront of the effort to pass comprehensive immigration reform legislation. In 2001 he became the first elected official to sponsor a version of the DREAM Act—legislation designed to create a path-to-citizenship for illegal immigrants who came to the United States as minors.
In 2004 Gutierrez was a guest speaker at a “Take Back America” conference organized by the Campaign for America's Future, an organization dominated by the Democratic Socialists of America and the Institute for Policy Studies.
In 2005 Gutierrez joined the Out of Iraq Congressional Caucus. To view a list of additional Caucus members, click here.
In 2008 Gutierrez was appointed to the National Latino Advisory Council of Barack Obama's presidential campaign, along with such notables as Xavier Becerra, Henry Cisneros, Raul Grijalva, Eliseo Medina, Linda Sanchez, Hilda Solis, and Nydia Velazquez.
The following year, Gutierrez co-sponsored the Comprehensive Immigration Reform for America's Security and Prosperity Act, a bill to create a pathway-to-citizenship for non-criminal illegal immigrants. He also led a multi-city tour whose purpose was to draw public attention to the hardships that immigrant families and communities were experiencing as a result of deportations.
In 2010 Gutierrez threatened to oppose the Democratic healthcare-reform bill because it included provisions that would prohibit illegal immigrants from purchasing coverage through government-run exchanges. He ultimately decided to back the legislation, however, because he was confident that Congress would soon “move forward on a comprehensive immigration reform package.” But later that year, Gutierrez, dissatisfied with the pace of progress on immigration reform, openly encouraged acts of nonviolent civil disobedience to force Congress to act. “We cannot be a slave to the legislative process,” he said. “That’s what we’ve done, and it hasn’t served us very well.”
In late July 2011, Gutierrez was arrested for participating in a sit-in outside the White House to demand that President Obama stop the deportation of illegal immigrants.
At an August 2013 town hall event in Chantilly, Virginia, Gutierrez warned that if a comprehensive immigration-reform bill was not passed soon:
“[S]omeone is going to die in that [Southwestern U.S.] desert trying to return to their families.... Someone’s going to lose a finger, a hand, an eye, a life today because an unscrupulous employer is going to put them in harm’s way. Someone’s going to die. There’s a woman that’s going to be raped in a field somewhere in America today because she has no rights in this country, and we need to end that.... There are children who are going to cry and there are marriages that are going to be destroyed because someone is going to be deported, and there are going to be children that are going to be left orphaned in this country.”
On October 8, 2013, Gutierrez was one of eight members of Congress (all Democrats) who were arrested when they sat in the middle of Independence Avenue and blocked rush-hour traffic during an immigration rally on Washington’s National Mall. The 15,000-plus demonstrators called for the passage of legislation allowing illegal immigrants to apply for U.S. citizenship. Also arrested were Representatives Joseph Crowley, Keith Ellison, Al Green, Raul Grijalva, John Lewis, Charles Rangel, and Jan Schakowsky.
At a July 2014 National Council of La Raza convention, Gutierrez told attendees that he was confident that President Obama would use executive action to give legal status to millions of immigrants who were living in the U.S. unlawfully. In a television interview a few days later, Gutiérrez said he would soon be meeting with White House officials “to negotiate additional terms and avenues the president can use” as means of securing amnesty for millions. “I think we can get 3 or 4, maybe even 5 million people,” he stated.
For an overview of Luis Gutierrez's voting record on numerous key issues during the course of his congressional career, click here.
For additional information on Luis Gutierrez, click here. http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=1265
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