Jun 08 2007

Now What?

Published by at 7:05 am under 2008 Elections,All General Discussions

Well, President Bush is now a lame duck because the far right abandoned him and the conservative coalition. And the democrats run the Congress and are issueuing subpoenas. Bush can do no more now than veto legislation and give Iraq more time to turn around. The Dems will go on a spree to smear the administration and prepare for 2008. A win on immigration could have given the country some confidence and the GOP some momentum. Now we have 1.5 years of partisan stalemate. The good news is we probably won’t see anything major pass. The bad news is we won’t see anything good pass either. I would say watch for a shift away from the fringes. Watch for centrists to start winning primaries and seats (if any dare jump into the game). Watch many of those be Democrats – like in 2006. Democrats want to win so they will recruit a broader spectrum of candidates. The GOP wants to be right. They will be looking to purity and will belittle some of their strongest members – like Schwarzenegger and Guiliani and McCain. As they have always done. We will see a lot of Ned Lamonts on the GOP side I fear.

10 responses so far

10 Responses to “Now What?”

  1. stevevvs says:

    AJ,
    10-2-% did not kill this bill. 80-90% did. These Senators were under intense pressure from average THINKING Americans of all political stripes. The message was clear. Secure The Borders First, then we can talk. Honestly, common sense and the Will Of The People Prevailed. The Will of the Majority Won This Round. It wasn’t a small majority, it was a sunamie.

    An immigration alliance with Democratic Sen. Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts is damaging Arizona Sen. John McCain and South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham among conservative Republicans.

    Notice, it does not say “Far Right”, it says actual “Conservative Republicans”.

    “I’m very wary of a Republican who is talking to Ted Kennedy,” Rick Beltram, Republican Party chairman for Spartanburg County, S.C., told The Washington Times yesterday, after it was reported that Mr. Graham and Mr. McCain had first checked with Mr. Kennedy before deciding to vote with the Massachusetts Democrat on an amendment to the Senate bill.

    self explanitory

    A South Carolina Republican who resigned Wednesday from the McCain campaign said he had reached a “parting of ways with McCain and Lindsey Graham” over the immigration issue.
    “I hear from a lot of people, and I have yet to get one positive opinion on this immigration bill,” David Nix, who served as chairman for Mr. McCain’s campaign in Aiken County, S.C., told The Times yesterday.

    WHAT, HE’S YET TO HEAR ONE POSITIVE! DOESN’T HE GO TO AJ’S SITE?

    “I feel McCain and Graham are out of touch with the people of South Carolina,” Mr. Nix said. “They are listening to the illegal aliens and not the citizens. We have lot of illegal aliens in this state.”
    South Carolina Republican Party Chairman Katon Dawson said the immigration issue has inflamed Republican voters in his state.

    “I have been chairman for five years and have never seen anything that has connected with the base like this amnesty fight,” Mr. Dawson said. “I can’t go down the street, walk into a restaurant or fill my gas tank without people walking up to me and saying, ‘What are you all going to do about immigration?'”

    This is the reality.

  2. stevevvs says:

    “The base in general thinks Jim DeMint walks on water and are concerned about Lindsey’s position on this,” the Spartanburg party chairman said.
    An Iowa Republican also credited the immigration issue with causing Mr. McCain and another Republican presidential candidate, former New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, to skip the Aug. 11 Iowa straw poll.
    “Once the Senate announced their amnesty bill, Giuliani and McCain had the albatross of amnesty hung around their necks,” said Rep. Steve King, Iowa Republican. “I’ve said for months you can’t win the Iowa Caucus if you support amnesty.”

    But with 50 votes in favor of a filibuster, including 11 Democrats and one Democrat-leaning independent, it underscored just how unpopular the compromise was with Democrats as well.

    The Dirty Little Secret

    After the vote, Mr. Reid praised the seven Republican “profiles in courage” who bucked their own party, prompting Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Kentucky Republican, to dryly note that more Democrats voted against their leaders.
    “I want to express my admiration for the 12 Democrats who voted against cloture for being profiles in courage,” he said with a smirk.

    The Best thing we can do now, is let this be a Major 2008 Presidential Campaighn Issue. That is where it belongs. Then someone will have a MANDATE to do what ever the Presidential Winner RAN ON. Could Be Amnesty , then Secure the Border, or it could be Secure The Border, then Amnesty. Stay tuned, we will find out.

  3. stevevvs says:

    How could the Senate amnesty bill have possibly failed? It was supported by the president, the majority party and prominent members of the minority, plus Big Business, Big Labor, Big Media, and Big Religion.

    And yet the motion Thursday night to end debate and move to a final vote on the bill was soundly rejected, failing to garner even a majority, let alone the necessary 60 votes.

    The reason was simple — public outrage.

  4. retire05 says:

    This was simply a win for the American people who let their voices be heard, loud and clear. Senators who would have normally gone along with this bill, be it to pander for votes or placate big business, realized the back door effects this bill would have. I am a conservative, but I thought Claire McCaskill (Mo) and Byron Dorgan from North Dakota, both Democrats, were right on with their arguments.
    This was a win for America workers, an already broken Social Security system and law enforcement.

    What will come out of this is the realization in Washington that the American taxpayer is very aware of the costs of illegal immigration and want something done but not amnesty, not a Social Security give-away from the Mexico-U.S. Social Security Totalization Agreement and not to tie the hands of law enforcement and letting in millions more uneducated foreign workers.

    What I predict is that we will see smaller, separate bills, veted in open committees, that will address the many facets of immigration, both legal and illegal.

    It was reported that as late as yesterday afternoon, certain Democrats were in the back rooms trying to pound out another 400 page gorilla that would replace a dying bill. They didn’t make it. It also shows, that on an issue that has the ability to change the whole social structure of our nation, Americans go to their computers and read the proposed legislation and start voicing their opinions.

    You would have to assume that Americans are stupid to have thought that the Senate could shove a bad bill down our throats. Americans are not stupid. Most of the time they are complaisant, but this time they were not. There is the victory. This was our government working the way it should; with imput from the voters who elected the D.C. players to carry out our will.

    Americans are immigrant friendly. They are not friendly to those who, with their first action on U.S. soil, break our laws. We realize that we need immigrants to help our nation prosper but we also realize that we cannot take in every poor, destitute soul who wants to come here. Immigration should benefit the host nation, not the other way around. The bill did not benefit the host nation, the U.S.

    Immigrantion should be tied to market needs. And it should not be allowed to drive down the wages of Americans for the sake of immigration itself.

    There were some good things in this bill. But the bad outweighed the good and Americans, reading the bill on their computers were saying “WTF is this?” and seeing how much their taxes would increase to pay for the exodus of those in foreign nations.

    Americans ended the war, with help from far left groups overseas, to end the Vietnam war. Yesterday, we saw Americans prevent the selling out of our nation by a bad bill. Now the politicians know, we know and we will not be silent when they pander for their own interests. As Claire McCaskill said “follow the money”.

    The argument is not over and it should not be over. But it should be open and aboveboard and presented to those it affects the most, the American taxpayer.

  5. Soothsayer says:

    Now what? Lame duck getting lamer by the day, that’s what!

    As Bush approaches 0% support, his regime increasingly appears to be floundering. From the upcoming incarceration of his former adivser/assistant I. Lewis Libby to his beleaguered Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to the deepening quagmire in Iraq, he is surrounded by incompetence and failure:

    Public approval of the job President Bush is doing now matches its all-time low, an AP-Ipsos poll says. The survey, released Thursday, reflects widespread discontent over how Bush is handling the war in Iraq, efforts against terrorism and domestic issues. It also underscores challenges Republican presidential and congressional candidates will confront next year when they face voters who seem to be clamoring for change.

    Only 32 percent said they were satisfied with how Bush is handling his job overall, the same low point AP-Ipsos polling measured last January and a drop of 3 percentage points since May.

    In another indication of the public’s bleak mood, only 21 percent said they believe things in the U.S. are heading in the right direction, the worst mark since the AP-Ipsos poll began in December 2003.

    US troops deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan have passed 3,500.

    The Department of Justice is investigating whether or not a Kuwaiti construction firm contracted to build the US Embassy in Iraq has carried out human trafficking with its laborers.

    An new report by the Council of Europe leaked Thursday to the Guardian and the New York Times identifies a secret Central Intelligence Agency detention facility at Stare Kjekuty in northeastern Poland. The Council’s report confirms authoritatively that secret “black sites” existed in both Romania and Poland [where captured enemy combatants or agents allegedly have been tortured and/or killed].

    In Surge-ville, carloads of attackers descended on a police chief’s house northeast of Baghdad at dawn Friday, killing the official’s wife, two brothers and 11 guards, and kidnapping three of his grown children, Diyala provincial police reported.

    The attack, which came when the police chief was not at home, was one of the boldest and bloodiest in months of stepped-up violence around the city of Baqouba, where al-Qaida in Iraq and affiliated groups have been fighting U.S. and Iraqi forces and local insurgents who have turned against al-Qaida.

    Elsewhere in northern Iraq, two suicide bombers struck a Shiite mosque and a nearby police station near the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, and more than 25 people were killed or wounded, police said.

    On the brighter side – Paris Hilton may have to go back to jail, not passing Go! and not collecting $200.00.

  6. stevevvs says:

    The bill did not benefit the host nation, the U.S.

    Exactly.

    On my way home from work at Midnight, I always listen to talk radio from many states away, and in bed as I try to go asleep. Depending on what station comes in, I get either Michael Reagan, Mark R. Levin, or local Atlanta host Chris Krock. Last night, it was Chris Crock. WSB replayed his rally in front of Saxby Chamblis’s office in Atlanta. It sounded like a pretty large crowd, but it’s radio, so I’m just judging by the sound.
    At one point he talked to a few in the front, and put them on the Air. One, a man from India, who came here Legally, was outraged that this Country could possible even consider letting people who broke the law, get away with it.
    Another, a Hispanic Woman ( I’m not sure where she was from, as at that point, the signal faded) said this outraged her as well. It took her YEARS, but she came here Legally. And she has also been trying to get her Sister here Legally as well.
    I can tell you from my experiance at work, I do not know A SINGLE LEGAL IMMIGRANT that I come in contact with everyday, that thinks IllegalAliens should be granted any legal Status. I work with a very diverse group. Many Asians, Indians, Somalies, Lebanese, etc. My employer is very immigrant friendly because: A. We don’t pay a lot B. we work a LOT of weekends. Legal Immigrants are willing to work there under both conditions. (as are Illegals, which we don’t have)
    Just thought I’d pass that on.

  7. crosspatch says:

    There will never, ever be an immigration bill. Too many people are making too much money the way things are now. The drug cartels have billions to pour into opposition efforts both left and right. And the large real estate developers have several hundred million more.

  8. retire05 says:

    You’re wrong, crosspatch. There will be a new bill. But it is not reform that is needed, it is enforcement that is needed and the prosecution of shady employers and cities that refuse to honor federal laws becoming sanctuaries for illegals.
    Perhaps you should take a look at the elites who voted against the amendment that would have forced the administration to enforce the laws that are on the books now. Those are the ones that should be booted from office. We have the ways and the means to stop the flow of illegal immigration but not the will. But now, the American taxpayer has said “stop the bleeding first and we will talk about the wound later”.
    I knew I would read a lot of whining from the “my way or the highway, this bill only” crowd here. I was not wrong.
    It says a lot that you would want a back room deal, done by a gaggle of elites that said if anyone tried to change the bill or add amendments the whole thing would fall apart. When you start siding with a man who thinks leaving a woman to drown while he goes home to bed is a good thing, you are hopelessly lost already.

  9. AJStrata says:

    No R05,

    There will not be a new bill. No one can count on the GOP to reach across and make a compromise. We will have to simply replace the hotheads with cooler ones. That is how democracies work. Failures are voted out so new people with new ideas can give it a try.

  10. wiley says:

    If Bush is now relegated to “lame duck” because of this bill than he earned it. This bill & the whole process of trying to ram it thru shows our democracy at its worst. A bill the people didn’t want; that the elitist & smug pols didn’t want the people to know the details of; and one they wanted to pass before the folks could learn of the actual facts and without open & lengthy debate.

    Yes, it’s not over yet. Who knows, maybe some common-sense amendemnts can make this atrocity workable (doubtful), but if not than the defeat of this mess is a good thing. And clearly, by no means is this issue and the chance of another reform bill dead. Hardly, if Rudy or Mitt, or Fred wins, then a decent bill will be high priority legislation. (McCain, thank God, does not have a chance)