July 29, 2013

Cuban hidalgo rallies rich Republicans to back Rubio bill

From the NYT:
Big-Name G.O.P. Donors Urge Members of Congress to Back Immigration Overhaul

WASHINGTON — More than 100 Republican donors — many of them prominent names in their party’s establishment — sent a letter to Republican members of Congress on Tuesday urging them to support an overhaul of the nation’s immigration laws. 
The letter, which calls for “legal status” for the 11 million immigrants here illegally, begins with a simple appeal: “We write to urge you to take action to fix our broken immigration system.” 
The effort was organized by Carlos Gutierrez, who was secretary of commerce under President George W. Bush and was a founder of a “super PAC,” Republicans for Immigration Reform. The letter is the beginning of a campaign to lobby Republican lawmakers in favor of a broad immigration bill as they return to their districts for the August break.
A cross-section of Republican donors and fund-raisers signed the letter. They include Karl Rove, a deputy chief of staff in Mr. Bush’s White House; former Vice President Dan Quayle; Tom Stemberg, a founder of Staples; and Frank VanderSloot, the founder of Melaleuca Inc.

Frank VanderSloot, CEO of Melanoma Inc., sounds like the name of the rich Republican villain in a movie. But, he's in favor of more immigration, so he's cool.

28 comments:

Anonymous said...

4 days without Steve? Was beginning to wonder...

Glossy said...

"Frank VanderSloot, the founder of Melaleuca Inc."

Melaleuca means "black white". If Obama ever declares himself Emperor, he'd have to fight VanderSloot for the use of that trademarked term on his coat of arms.

Alfa158 said...

Why are they Republican donors to begin with? They are contributing to a party and then asking the party to commit suicide, thereby pouring money into an entity that will no longer have any real power. If I was a rich businessman I would donate to the Democrats. The Democrats are at least as big a friend of Big Business as the Republicans and are if anything even more willing to rig the system in your favor in exchange for more political power.

Anonymous said...

4 days without Steve? Was beginning to wonder...

Yeah, same. I can't remember the last time Steve went more than a day or two with no posts or comment approval updates.

Were you on vacation Steve?

Anonymous said...

vandersloot was the romney donor audited by the IRS last year

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304070304577396412560038208.html

Auntie Analogue said...


Wake up, Alfa158, these donors push for Shamnesty because they PROFIT FROM IT.

Then they use their profits to fund the campaigns of the Republicans whom, once elected, they then puppet to have those Republicans find more ways to use Government to make more profits for those same donors. It is all a circle jerk of the rich & powerful.

Dutch reader said...

VanderSloot sounds even more villainous since the Natalie Holloway and Stephany Flores cases.

Anonymous said...

If you can't trust Dan Quayle, who can you trust?

Semi-employed White Guy said...

Well if Dan Quayle is on-board, then golly I'm in too!

Matthew said...

"Why are they Republican donors to begin with? They are contributing to a party and then asking the party to commit suicide, thereby pouring money into an entity that will no longer have any real power."

Because if they didn't, the GOP might actually bother to try to represent the voters. It's important that the rich control both parties.

Cail Corishev said...

Illegal immigrants have a legal status: they are legally citizens of some other country, who have broken US laws because they didn't wish to go through the application process that millions of legal immigrants have gone through. That's their legal status.

What these guys are really saying is that they don't think we should have any restrictions on people entering the country -- if you can find your way across the border, you're welcome. Fine, but let them say that and let them try to change the laws to make it so.

Anonymous said...

"Melanoma" is too generous. The actual Melaleuca is a multi-level marketing scheme, selling various types of snake oil. Pretty much the lowest of the low in the legal business world.

Anonymous said...

I attended his event in The Wpodlands, Texas. About 20 heavy hitters there, and not one of them was buying his wares. The Woodlands is a fantastic community 35 miles north if Houston, but we are being overrun by wealthy Mexi Nats fleeing drug murderers.

Anonymous said...

Roll call: who's officially come out in favor of the Gang of Eight bill?

John McCain
Lindsey Graham
Marco Rubio
George W Bush
Jeb Bush
Dan Quayle
Karl Rove
Grover Norquist
The Koch Brothers
Shelden Adelsen
Bill Gates
Mark Zuckerberg

How can you possibly argue with those guys?

Alfa158 said...

Auntie Analogue, Matthew;

Yes, I agree with your points on how things work. But right now the elite control two parties that compete for power and can both give the elite what they want. With amnesty one of the those parties, the Republicans will becomes a marginalized spectator like it is now in California.
I'm trying to figure out how the scenario plays out:
1. The elite presently have two parties working in their interests with most of the very richest people (Gates, Zuckerberg, Buffett etc.) supporting the Democrats and the lower tier supporting Republicans.
2. OK, it makes sense that the elite want amnesty, so they push the Republicans into going along because otherwise it won't get through the House. But then:
3. The Republicans eventually become powerless sideline spectators like they are in California.
4. So then: A: the ones who supported the Republicans find themselves having financed the power permanently out of power andtheir influence drops, and B: They will no longer have competitive parties that they can play off against each other.

That strikes me as a short term gain but a long term potential for loss of power. Are they figuring they don't care about the long term damage because they will all have repaired to their estates in Gstaad by then?

riches said...

The two "Anonymous" commenters might've known about the 4 day absence if they had, you know, read the posts leading up to it.

jody said...

this year's events have pretty much proven the "conservatism inc" narrative.

stari_momak said...

Turns out 'Malaleuca' is a multi-level marketing firm.

Figures.

stari_momak said...

Oops, see that 'Anonymous' got there ahead of me.

stari_momak said...

Aren't there any rich people on our side. I know some of the extended Chandler clan is. You'd think the HP foundation, with its supposed mission about population and concern for the environment would be.

Surely there has to be some old money out there

Anonymous said...

"Cuban hidalgo rallies rich Republicans to back Rubio bill"

Or, "Latin-style overclass seeks Latin-style underclass."

We often say that mass immigration is suicidal for the Republican Party. Would that it were so.

Mass immigration is suicidal for the GOP as a party that represents historic America, but it's not hard to imagine a future where the GOP survives and remains competitive...as an oligarchic party that buys off the masses with bread and circuses, a Tweedledum to the Democrats' Tweedledee.

So yeah, I wish the Karl Roves of the Republican Party were undermining their own political future in pursuing mass immigration, but they're just undermining yours.

Matthew said...

"The actual Melaleuca is a multi-level marketing scheme, selling various types of snake oil. Pretty much the lowest of the low in the legal business world."

Yeah, VanderSloot realizes that in order to grow his business it is best to have lots of dumb people willing to buy into his MLM crap, but that those dumb people need to be earning First World incomes. Hispanics? Perfect demo for that.

I wouldn't say MLM is the lowest of the low, though. Wall Street and construction are down with MLM, if not worse. Anyone who's ever worked in construction as a subcontractor can tell you how brutal and dishonest the construction business is - jobs for which you get paid very late if you ever get paid at all, and rampant bribery of politicians left and right, especially at the local level. Most city councils are owned by real estate developers.

rob said...

From multilevel marketing to alien invasion enthusiast Congressthing. Failing ever upward!

rob said...

Maybe the capcha looks for length, not accuracy?

jody said...

"The Woodlands is a fantastic community 35 miles north if Houston, but we are being overrun by wealthy Mexi Nats fleeing drug murderers."

the woodlands was developed from scratch by george mitchell in the 70s. the guy who later went on to invent horizontal fracking in the 80s. he spent 10 years and millions of dollars of his own money banging away on the problem until he cracked it.

he died this week. though they love blathering on and on about fracking itself, the US media was 100% uninterested in the passing of one the most important americans in the last 50 years. he personally is directly responsible for the natural gas boom which the democrats and their compliant media are taking full credit for. as well as at least 2 million barrels of oil per day in crude oil production. which, at current rates of 100 dollars a barrel, means his invention contributes over 200 million dollars a day in the US economy just from oil.

then there's all the jobs in all the shale fields. mitchell is almost single handedly responsible for most of the GPD growth in north dakota over the last 5 years, and probably half of the GDP growth in texas over the same time.

he also served in the US army during world war 2, finished first in his class at texas A&M, built his own oil and gas company that he eventually sold for 3 billion dollars, and had 10 children with his one wife, who he married and stayed with for his entire life until she died a few years ago.

contrast this guy to president zero, who we have to hear about every day, and who has contributed not one dollar of value to the united states in his entire 50 worthless years of existence. quite the contrary. he and his ilk are parasites at best, and more realistically, destructive locusts.

when obama gets up there and says "I don't know what Republicans are talking about, thanks to my policies we're producing more oil than we have in years," he should have said "Thanks to nothing I or any other democrats had anything whatsoever to do with, George Mitchell's new technology has increased US oil production up to 7 million barrels a day."

instead obama would look mitchell right in the eye and say "You didn't build that." then tell him yeah, we're collecting 18 cents on every gallon of oil your technology produces. mitchell does all the work and takes all the risk, obama and his ilk sit here, doing no work, taking no risk, collecting the taxes for redistribution, contemplating whether to sue mitchell's company for "not enough blacks!".

stari_momak said...

Diversity before diversity. Spitting image of Gutierrez.

Anonymous said...

"Are they figuring they don't care about the long term damage because they will all have repaired to their estates in Gstaad by then?"

They're sociopaths. They don't think like normal people.

.

"Mass immigration is suicidal for the GOP as a party that represents historic America, but it's not hard to imagine a future where the GOP survives and remains competitive...as an oligarchic party that buys off the masses with bread and circuses"

I don't think people get it. As soon as (white) American military power is no longer seen as a threat politics in the Americas will become fully racialized.

.

"but we are being overrun by wealthy Mexi Nats fleeing drug murderers."

Maybe that's the beginning. The nascent Chavez style anti-white class-based party diverted into drug gangs.

Anonymous said...

http://www.nbcnews.com/science/genetic-adam-eve-traced-they-didnt-know-each-other-6C10822690