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| The bipartisan Gang of Eight |
Mickey Kaus explains at the
Daily Caller an idea that Dave Weigel at
Slate suggested a few days ago:
An idea so crazy it just might … Opponents and supporters of “comprehensive immigration reform” (i.e. amnesty) agree it doesn’t do well on the front burner of public debate. Excessive attention exposes flaws and contradictions in the legislation and focuses the anger of opponents. Back in March, I didn’t see how the Obama team, however brilliant, was going to protect its amnesty bill from this threat of publicity, given that the mainstream press was “commmitted to overcovering this issue.”
Now we know the answer! In its most fiendish strategem yet, Team Obama has launched a series of not-quite-devastating but press-obsessing scandals against itself! The confluence of the Internal Revenue Service, Benghazi and AP stories means that dreadful details of the Schumer-Rubio bill will get pushed off the front pages. Reporters who might otherwise cover it will be temporarily sent to Cincinatti to interview IRS whistleblowers. Meanhwile, the scandals give Sen. Rubio and other Republicans a chance to bash Obama about something new, giving them the anti-Obama cred that might allow them to quietly sell out on amnesty and hand Obama his greatest second-term triumph!
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| Senators Rubio, Schumer, Graham & McCain negotiate immigration reform |
Similarly, the scandals give conservative activists an alternative, substitute target for their outrage, all the more so because the anger is legitimate. As Greg Sargent put it, the scandals could “distract right wing base for long enough for Graham and Rubio to slip immigration reform past them.” (Dem strategist Joe Trippi tweeted in response: “Shhhhh …”)
Mark Zuckerberg's probably feeling relieved, too.
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29 comments:
I'm still paying attention. When all is said and done Obama will probably still serve out his term and ObamaCare will be disastrously implemented. In the long term the scandals are a nothing burger.
It's important to the scandals to point out that politicians like Obama and his cronies will become permanent fixtures in DC if 60 million Latinos are brought into the country and enfranchised.
Of course it does, and this just sums up modern Republicanism perfectly: Give the yahoos who vote for you phony bloody-shirt, daily outrage issues like Benghazi while screwing them on the real issues like the invasion that will sentence them and their children to live in a third-world dump. Opposing the invasion will get you Richwined, and that will take away your ability to feed in the trough. Good for the country? How is that going to put any money in my pockets?
I'm seeing more mainstream conservatives noticing that the Republicans who are weakest on other issues are really pimping these scandals hard.
Hey Republicans, if you don't want Obama to get the credit then you have to impeach him.
Why do people like Weigel keep assuming that if amnesty passes in the Senate, it will also pass in the House? Is Boehner considered to be that big of a weak-kneed sellout?
Mickey was right that Hurricane Sandy gave Obama a boost right before the election, so maybe he's right about this.
Meanwhile, the scandals give Sen. Rubio and other Republicans a chance to bash Obama about something new, giving them the anti-Obama cred that might allow them to quietly sell out on amnesty and hand Obama his greatest second-term triumph!
Referring to Comprehensive Immigration Reform as "his greatest second-term triumph" is an understatement. It's total victory. It's the deathblow to any hope for Constitutional government in the US. It's the establishment of a permanent Progressive Left.
"Why do people like Weigel keep assuming that if amnesty passes in the Senate, it will also pass in the House? Is Boehner considered to be that big of a weak-kneed sellout? "
The hope is that Boehner is too weak to control his own caucus.
Still, the opponents of mass amnesty cannot say that they didn't get their argument to be heard.
National Review - shockingly enough - has been giving ample space to those skeptics (and even their editor-in-chief is one).
House Republicans have been fed plenty of material through the house organs and most of the conservative new media, townhall, breitbart etc have also taken this stand. Daily Caller is more mixed, Kaus has been doing lord's work but others at the publication like Matt Lewis is basically an open borders guy.
The bottomline is that the arguments are there in plain view and have been aired. Hosue GOP members know that they will be signing their own death warrant. It becomes less a matter of principle and more a matter of political survival for them. That is probably the best shot that the amnesty skeptics have.
But I might add that Richwine's solution isn't great either. The main issue with immigration isn't economic; it's cultural.
Asian 2nd generation voters are now more left-wing than even latinos. And the trend is only in one direction.
They also support affirmative action by numbers approaching around 70% despite the occasional grumble.
Richwine's intellectual yellow fever helps noone.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwhZwnQNPCM
Democratic politicians and their media spokespeople are open and honest about the fact that they hate you. They're the coalition of the fringe and don't even ask for your vote. You know and they know that they're the politicians working to disenfranchise you and the relationship moves along with that understanding.
Republican politicians and their media spokespeople on the other hand claim to be YOUR PEOPLE, caring about YOUR ISSUES and YOUR VALUES however not only do they never, ever, EVER deliver ANYTHING to their voters but week after week scandals emerge that prove that they do not share their voters values at all.
Honestly it's amazing. All that the Republicans ever do is make life easier and better for the rich. That's it. They have never done a single thing for their constitiency. not one. Ever.
And yet, most of the people reading this continue to vote for them. Why?
Do you care about the invasion of your homeland? The "celebration" of homosexuality? Abortion? Christianity? Family values? Community values? People being judged by the content of their character rather than by the color of their skin?
I could go on and on and continue to fail to find a single, sole, solitary issue that the politicians you voted for have ever delivered to you.
They cry and lie about how much their on your side and they show you ever widdle widdle thing "those democrats" do that's annoying but they never ever deliver anything to you. They never truly try to... Because THEY DON'T WANT TO. They revile you even more than Obama does and support no issue of yours at all. They are (and pretty much always have been) the party of the plutocrats.
One thing conspicous by its absence:
Young 1%-ers who are showing apprehension.
Rich guys that are the same age as Boehner can always tell themselves: Even if the influx of immigrants will wreck the country in the long run, that does not matter to me. I will be dead by then. Meanwhile, the wage depression helps my personal economy right now."
If one does not value the country and what happens after one has died, then that calculus is correct, given the preference set by those performing it in their heads.
But what about the young and rich? Are there none of them that do not see that if the country goes to the dumps, then their personal economy will quite likely go to the dumps also? Are they all counting on living out their years paid for by the Swiss bank accounts? If those run dry, do they really delude themselves into thinking that any other country would let them rise to the cream of that country?
Zuckerberg is young enough so that this should be of concern to him, but if the overriding objective is to see to it that the resources that USA produces get to help another country, then it makes sense, given their preferences.
But what about the young and rich who are not Scots-Irish? Do they not exist anymore?
"Why do people like Weigel keep assuming that if amnesty passes in the Senate, it will also pass in the House? Is Boehner considered to be that big of a weak-kneed sellout?"
Boehner supports amnesty. The only thing that might get him to stop it is the possibility it will cost him his speakership. Given the money to be made in a post-political career (e.g., Bill Clinton and his $130 million in "speaking fees") I'm not sure that's enough to stop him.
Pretty apt that, in the caption, Lindsay Graham would be the guy dressed head to toe in leather. That said, you'd expect the masculine, Germanic, "Tom of Finland" archetype to be sexually dominant, and the smart money is on Senator Graham being a passive "bottom."
As for Mickey Kaus' observations, it's pretty telling that the two big GOP faces of amnesty, Marco Rube and Paul Ryan, have been trotted out all over conservative media to Obama over the scandals (yeah, for those who didn't know, Ryan is a major "immigration reform" shill -- he even appeared with ultra-left wing Congressman Luis Gutierrez to push for amnesty).
It's also telling that all the Obama scandals hit at the same time, rather than dripping out bit by bit over time (which would inflict maximal political damage). The media already has the supposed exculpatory proof that Obama had no knowledge of anything bad or scandalous on any front -- just low level rouge bureaucrats and guys at State and the CIA with bad intel on Libya (ABC News' Jonathan Karl, the former New Republic hack who "broke" the story of the supposedly scandalous Benghazi rewritten talking points, is already pushing the narrative that the White House had nothing to do with writing them -- they were merely victims of bad intel from the CIA).
These "scandals" will be over and done with by the time that Bohner's House amnesty bill comes up for a vote.
I could go on and on and continue to fail to find a single, sole, solitary issue that the [Republican] politicians you voted for have ever delivered to you.
There is a lot of truth here but it's a little over the top. The administration's gun control legislation would have passed without Republican opposition. (Sure, some Democrats opposed it, but once they achieve their permanent majority they will vote to confiscate privately owned firearms.) GW Bush's immigration bill would have passed had Republicans not opposed it.
Would you say we have a plethora of immigration sell-outs?
But I might add that Richwine's solution isn't great either. The main issue with immigration isn't economic; it's cultural.
Absolutely true. A high-IQ STEM worker might add more value to the country than a low-IQ refugee, but we don't need either right now. We have high unemployment, especially in the exact fields for which we've been bringing in the most immigrants. This isn't hard to figure out.
If we had a complete moratorium on all new immigration that's for economic purposes, and limited chain migration to spouses and children of citizens only, we'd still get plenty of new people that way for quite a while to take care of our "vibrancy" needs. Just American men overseas for business or military service bring home how many foreign wives each year?
The open borders nuts want people to think it's binary -- we open the borders to 3.3M+ people a year, with no restriction on who they are or whence they come, or we lock all the gates and no one goes in or out and we can't even get a decent curry anymore. That's just stupid.
I don't think it helps them at all.
It gives the House Republicans political cover to block one of Obama's key policy outcomes: enfranchising poor foreigners to pad the Democrat electoral rolls.
And yet, most of the people reading this continue to vote for [Republicans]. Why?
Did you read your first paragraph? As you say, the Democrats hate the kind of people who read here. They want us to die. The Republicans suck, but they don't want us to die; they just want us to pay for everything. Is the concept of "lesser of two evils" too difficult for you?
Bob has a gun to your head, and Jim is slipping your wallet out of your pocket. Your fairy godmother appears and offers to make one of them disappear. What do you do?
When I have another choice, I don't vote Republican. Unfortunately, about 99% of the voters in this country have decided the two parties we have represent us just fine, so they rarely give us another choice.
Are they all counting on living out their years paid for by the Swiss bank accounts? If those run dry, do they really delude themselves into thinking that any other country would let them rise to the cream of that country?
Sure, why not? They're already rich, so they don't have to rise to the cream; they would already be the cream.
If I could show up in a foreign country with a billion US dollars to spend setting myself up in luxury, of course most of them would roll out the red carpet. Some would have an assortment of princesses for me to choose from. Yes, I'd be quite confident that I could find a pleasant place to live out my days even if America went to hell.
It’s fat-pitch week in Washington for conservative Big Dog columnists. Will is wallowing in Watergate memories of ’73, when he was young and interesting. Krauthammer gets to give moral lectures, just like Richard Cohen. The rest are mostly following suit. Only Barone would be embarrassed to rewrite the same column over and over for 40 years, so actually says something new and true from time to time.
The benghazi "scandal" is a joke
this is to distract from the real scandal about benghazi
what the fuck the ambassador was doing there in the first place
Kaus is wrong on this one Steve. Boehner is facing a full-scale revolt among his caucus, who are incensed at Obama and anything he wants. Particularly since they can ride the wave of revulsion against the IRS as Junior Stasi against "angering Latinos" for re-election.
The IRS is already hated. Now that its the junior Goon version (with new abuses coming out every day, audits for anyone on Obama's enemy list) -- AND ObamaCare in their hands, its open warfare of survival against Obama.
Who looks weak, lying, evasive, and shifty. On all fronts: he let his Ambassador, another diplomat, and two SEALs to die and prevented help from being sent; he's not even loyal to people who work for him. All to get his ass re-elected.
Momentum exists. Even Shakespeare knew it. Obama gets more and more toxic by the minute. He's for mass open borders/amnesty. Why would a Republican pass anything he wants in the House, knowing angry voters will Primary him out? Zuck's cash pile is not that big.
Besides Congress is basically on the verge of shutting down the IRS through selective defunding; the agency that targets conservatives and tells people not to protest and audits Obama's enemies is in charge of HEALTHCARE. With Obama's top Tea Party targeter now in charge of it all.
Let me add, Obama's chance to get open borders and Amnesty lay in producing real fear of his power, cover for Republican Congressmen facing re-election in 2014, and a desire to seek a "liferaft" in an unstoppable Democratic tide. He now looks like Richard Nixon circa 1973, with people openly talking impeachment. Which won't happen (for now) but makes him weak, not feared, and the desire for some sort of "liferaft" regarding Latino voters a non-starter.
Yes, Zuck and company are throwing millions around. That won't help the Republican Congressman who will have to explain in his primary just a year away why he voted to give Obama more voters and welfare recipients and ObamaPhones or MarcoPhones ... and all the Zuck cover cash won't stretch that for for say, 100 vulnerable Congressman. Not even Zuck has that cash around. Nor the means to use it.
The other casualty is the Media. People know they lied and covered for Obama to get him re-elected. So they trust them pretty much not at all; there is no real difference between say, Scot Pelley and Brian Williams, and Billy Bush on ET or whoever is on TMZ.
I think that Kaus is right. Perhaps that's why FOX has been relentless flogging Benghazi which, as far as I can tell, nobody but old people who watch FOX all day even cares about.
These scandals-du-jour, soon to be forgotten, will provide cover for Congress to cook up the usual reeking pile of bi-partisan foulness, all but burying this country in foreigners.
"Is the concept of "lesser of two evils" too difficult for you?" - Cail Corishev
You give in too easily, and lose all of your bargaining power. You have to let Republicans know that you won't vote for them, unless...
They have to know we're willing to walk away. We may not have many options, but they have to think we do. In my state, a few elections for state legislature have been lost over the last few election as a result of third party votes - seats Republicans would've won if they could've gotten the votes for the third party. I WILL NOT VOTE for a Republican who supports open borders - never, ever again. I'll vote for the Democrat or anyone else - even the Green Party, if that's the only option.
"Let me add, Obama's chance to get open borders and Amnesty lay in producing real fear of his power, cover for Republican Congressmen facing re-election in 2014."
It's hard to know why this was leaked now, and who ultimately decided to do it - Lerner, or someone higher up. It might be to distract from the amnesty debate. It might simply be an admission in order to ease any legal or PR repercussions.
Even if the issue is intended to distract from amnesty that won't necessarily be the end result. This issue will calm down quite a bit before the amnesty bill even makes it to the Senate floor, let alone the House. But the blow to the Obama Administration and to Democrats will remain. Add to that the Benghazi attacks, and the AP press phone records scandal (a huge blow to the media's trust in The Won).
Another big issue is the Tsarnaeev brothers. How effing obvious is it that one good way to fight terror is to remove non-citizens from the country who've been busted for visiting extremist websites? But Obummer hasn't made that policy? Sheesh...
You give in too easily, and lose all of your bargaining power. You have to let Republicans know that you won't vote for them, unless...
People can do and are doing that. But the numbers aren't enough to make a difference yet. If Republicans go along with this amnesty, that might be the thing that finally gives an exodus critical mass. I'm not hoping for that, though, because I care more about the USA than the GOP. It's kind of a catch-22 -- if they pass it, a patriotic third party might finally get some traction. But if they back off and kick the can down the road to try again in a few years, grass-roots Republicans will say "See, they came through when they really had to; we can keep trusting them." Bad deal.
Another aspect of it: in my small town, there are two local network TV stations, each with a news crew. Strict capitalist theory would say that they should always be striving to beat each other, to have the bigger viewing audience and win the most awards. But in practice, it doesn't work that way. People who work at the #2 station tell me they're actually content with that -- the #1 station is older, more conventional, has an older audience, while the #2 station's people are younger, more innovative with the technology, having more fun even though it doesn't boost their ratings. In theory they'd like to be #1 someday, but they're actually quite happy at #2.
Sometimes I think the GOP is the same way, conservatives especially so. After 40 years as the minority in the house, they're more comfortable sniping at corrupt leaders than being the leaders trying to avoid corruption themselves. They've been bleeding people exactly how you suggest should threaten them -- first the Reagan Democrats, now their conservative base little by little -- and it hasn't changed them yet. They may just be more comfortable being the #2 party, fighting losing battles and being able to blame Democrats for the decline; rather than being the #1 party by getting 65% of the white vote, being called racists and blamed for whatever happens under their rule.
"Mr. Anon said...
I think that Kaus is right. Perhaps that's why FOX has been relentless flogging Benghazi which, as far as I can tell, nobody but old people who watch FOX all day even cares about."
That is very true. If nothing else, I hope more people can finally wake up to what Fox News Channel really is.
Because conservatism is about defending the old traditions, culture, and rules. That's why leftists favor immigration - they hate the old culture - and that's why even intelligent, successful Asians aren't conservative. Many Asians, no matter how good America has been to them, do not view America's culture as their own. Mainly because the polling of second generatoin asians was in the Bay Area in both Orange and San Diego that have about 800,000 combine they voted less for the Democratic than did Hispanics. In the Bay Area or Seattle or Los Angeles Asians and Whites will vote more Democratic so the polling for Asians which was mainly in the liberal cities by the pollsters made them appear left of Hispanics. Hispanics were even in La slightly to the left of Asians but the Bay Area, or Seattle or New York City was use more. In fact Obama won Santa Ana and West Anaheim at 20 percent in Orange County and won Irvine only by 9 points which is about 40 percent Asian.
I agree the house in the Midwest and the south is going to go against the amnesty because even front page which like Rick Perry is strongly against it. In fact the more hard right wing base which is mad at the IRS situation will probably pushed more against legalization. So, Obama will probably lose unless he can get around the House of Representative.
As for Mickey Kaus' observations, it's pretty telling that the two big GOP faces of amnesty, Marco Rube and Paul Ryan, have been trotted out all over conservative media to Obama over the scandals (yeah, for those who didn't know, Ryan is a major "immigration reform" shill -- he even appeared with ultra-left wing Congressman Luis Gutierrez to push for amnesty).
Basically, Ryan is not the smartest guy since he is Jack Kemp the second and work under Kemp. He came out against prop 187 years ago. Ru bio isn't as bright either, actually Ted Cruz who has opposed the amnesty and Rand Paul who back down a little have a greater chance in the future. Paul's old man had teamed up with Gary North for a home school program which means that Paul is going to get a lot of religious right vote, I mean Rand and many like Ted Cruz, so the usual Republican Bush people will have some problems in 2014 or 2016.
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