Jun 15 2007
Immigration Bill Rises Like A Phoenix
The Immigration Bill, which this country needs to fix many (not all) of the problems with our current immigration situation, is making a return visit to the Senate next week.
Senate leaders announced plans Thursday night to revive the White House-backed measure as early as next week, although neither Majority Leader Harry Reid nor his GOP counterpart, Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, issued any predictions the bill ultimately would pass.
Instead, they issued a statement that said in its entirety: “We met this evening with several of the senators involved in the immigration bill negotiations. Based on that discussion, the immigration bill will return to the Senate floor after completion” of sweeping energy legislation that has occupied the Senate this week.
There was no immediate reaction from the bill’s numerous Senate critics, who have consistently attacked the legislation as conferring amnesty on the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants living in the country.
The amnesty-hypochondriacs do not have enough grass roots hate riled up to limit a process of fines, reparations and background checks to deal with the 12+ million immigrants who have been in this country for a long time. That element of the bill still garners support in the nation by 2-1. Sequencing doesn’t remove the support, priority doesn’t remove the support, pessimism on enforcement doesn’t remove the support. There will be a few sticks in the mud who will never get past the notion we will have all these immigrants in this nation of immigrants. And that they will go from illegal to legal – which removes their last lever to push deportation (either by force or coersion).
If the bill passes, what I will be looking for is all those glowing words about our democracy in action, and how the process of representative government works so well. Just like we heard when the bill was supposedly killed the other week. It is clear there is going to be the votes to get it past a filibuster – which means it should pass.
Senate Minority Whip Trent Lott, R-Miss., indicated earlier that he could produce enough GOP votes to clear the 60-vote threshold to get the bill back to the floor and push it to a final vote.
I should note that all Reps in the House and Senate need Bush for the rest of his term to support their legislative goals. And they will need his fundraising abilities in 2008 for all levels of government. So do not expect another whole sale sell-out of Bush. Clearly there are only a few in the GOP who are that self destructive over the immigration bill.
Of course, instead of the reasoned and honorable debate our great nation deserves, we could get more of this nonsense:
Bush is a thief. He is stealing our future!
He is killing the United States of America.
Bush is a traitor!
3 posted on 06/14/2007 10:23:22 PM PDT by GinaLolaB
Yes, count me into this number… Only the only acceptable solution to me is to deport them.
4 posted on 06/14/2007 10:23:54 PM PDT by babygene (Never look into the laser with your last good eye…)
Must have taken this poll in Los Angeles. I really don’t care if they come out with a poll that says 99.9% are in favor. They don’t have the right to force this on me.
17 posted on 06/14/2007 11:22:02 PM PDT by Razz Barry (Round’em up, send’em home.)
I really can’t imagine where they found these 1,000+ “citizens†who, allegedly provided input for this poll-—and I have to talk to folks all over the country every day. Not a soul I’ve had contact with has been in favor of these proposals!! Perhaps they polled “undocumented Americansâ€, aka “wetbacksâ€?
23 posted on 06/15/2007 1:25:28 AM PDT by singfreedom (“Victory at all costs,…….for without victory there is no survival.”–Churchill–that’s “Winston”)
Much more bile here. This is the amnesty-hypochondriac crowd at the core. They are so obsessed they do not recognize the right of the democratically elected government to do what the majority decides. This is the amnesty-hypochondriac crowd – who began back stabbing Bush over Dubai Ports and then demanded he respect their rants. I seriously doubt this is the thinking of most Americans. But we shall see. The vote will be sometime next week apparently so we shall find out soon enough.
Update: Could not resist offering this comment up to the ‘discussion’:
“Stuff like racist, bigot are soooooooo 20th century.
If loving my country means I don’t want to see it turned into a third world toilet then count me as a bigot. I will proudly wear the lable.35 posted on 06/14/2007 11:28:34 PM PDT by blackbart.223 (I live in Northern Nevada. Reid doesn’t represent me.)
When push comes to shove, and we are shoving on the amnesty-hypochondriacs, they face a choice. Stay with their principles or go with their paranoid fears. This fear of immigration is so strong with this crowd they will go, in large numbers, with their fear. BTW, I would like to point out to those shuddering in fear about this country’s future to look at their arguments again. Their claim is the 1980 real amnesty disaster and the subsequent years of lax law enforcement destroyed this country. It did not destroy it.
This country stood tall and strong in the world beating back many enemies, including Saddam Hussein. This country’s economy has been on a historic run. And conservatism WAS taking hold. The one hiccup was the last time many on the right through a fit and let Bill Clinton get elected. Since the mistake of 1980 (which I agreed now and then is a mistake) we have opened the world via the internet and changed humanity forever – for the better.
I am not buying the Chicken Little stories because the same BS was spouted in 1980. The end of the country is not coming, just the end of the far right’s hold on the conservative movement. These kinds of comments are the step too far the nation will not travel. The one thing I like BEST about this bill is the fact no temporary guest worker can become a US citizens for simply working here for a while. To me that is huge, and will do more to make sure those who do immigrate and become citizens do it for more than a paycheck. They will do it because they want to be Americans. As the amnesty hypochondriacs become more shrill and see more and more doom over the fact those here now will now be here and registered, their cause will also become more and more marginalized. If you cry ‘wolf’, you better make sure there is a wolf.
AJ, SallyVee, along with others, hang on your every word. I chose not to follow the herd. Instead, I chose to make decisions on the information provided to me (i.e. the bill itself) instead of being led in the manner of mindless cattle. I really think that very fact is what bothers you and your groupies.
I asked you to address just a few simple questions. Your response was that you had already done that. Now, since you are the web master, you should have had no problem linking those reasons by saying “here, RO5, it was in this thread”. You did not do that and one can only assume when one is not willing to back up their claims with hard fact, they are doing so because they are spinning.
Are you open to rational debate, AJ, taking the bill point by point? If you are so convinced that the bill is so great, you should be willing to do that.
So take just one of my questions, just one, and address it.
How about this one:
how will the federal goverment process 12-20 million when they can’t process standard passports for legal Americans who want to travel this summer?
Yeah, the Chicken Littles . . . may be approaching self-defeating territory if they keep up the non-stop screaming and dire predictions. At the very least they exhaust ordinary people, regardless of the merits of their arguments.
Yes, SallyVee. My feelings exactly. All of these harangues aren’t motivating me to do anything.
I also think it is remarkably generous of AJ to be paying for all this bandwidth to provide the kill-this-bill-now bunch with a forum from which to harangue the rest of us.
I must also say that it’s strange that people can plow through the Senate illegal immigration bill but can’t go back through AJ’s archives on illegal immigration if they’re so interested in what AJ said in the past.
I wish R05 would stop issuing Michael Moore-like debate challenges. You said your piece, now move along. Pretty soon he is going direct a “factual” movie about illegal immigration and call it “Alien-O” or ” Immigration 6/07″.
Help me out with some titles. HA HA HA
You get the point.
Tantrums being thrown all over the place. Just take this quote from R05 as an example:
“WAH WAH WAH”
end quote.
Great point Aitch748!!!
And R05: just joking. Don’t get all hissy on me.
HA HA HA
Retire, in all seriousness. I do not like to see any American as upset, and convinced of our imminent demise as you are. I just walked out my front door… sun is shining… people are mowing their lawns… kids are playing in the front yard… dogs are barking.
I despise the troglodytes and demogogues who are heaping this doom and gloom on the public. Resist!
R05,
Stop whining I don’t give you the attention you crave. This is my site. Not a site I do for your bidding. Another lame excuse to ignore what people have posted so you can fantasize all these silly things.
Reader2007, if I took the immigration argument as a personal insult, I would have left here long ago. I don’t. But if I am willing to argue the bill on it’s face, I see no reason why you would not also be willing to do that, as well. You say that I offer “Michael Moore-like debates” but you do not address any of the questions I posed to AJ. Seems to me you offer Teddy Kennedy-like debate with “this bill is good for you, I know because I am soooo smart and you are just a racist “immigration hypochondriac””.
As to knowing what is in the bill, why does that surprise you? And why would it seem odd that since I have not bookmarked AJ’s previous threads on the issue, I would have to spend time going through all of them when the simple solution would be for AJ (the owner of the blog) to link them?
Perhap, reader2007, you are aitch would like to address the questions I posted above?
AJ, you never fail to confirm your lack of rational argument.
Have a great love-in.
Perhap, reader2007, you are aitch would like to address the questions I posted above?
No I wouldn’t, because in all honesty I’m really not that interested in trying to get you to change your mind.
R05: you speak to your own laziness on the issue when you wrote:
“As to knowing what is in the bill, why does that surprise you? And why would it seem odd that since I have not bookmarked AJ’s previous threads on the issue, I would have to spend time going through all of them when the simple solution would be for AJ (the owner of the blog) to link them?”
You are the one who issued the request to debate with AJ. You are the one questioning him. If he or anybody refers you to his past posts to get the answer, then if you are TRULY INTERESTED IN HIS ANSWER, you would have been all over his archives. Why does anyone have to spoonfeed them to you? Are you a child?
In the end, you are not going to change your mind. You have closed yourself to that possibility, as least as it is indicated by the quotation I cited above.
So I again have to agree with AITCH748. No bother trying to come up with my own response, I will just quote AITCH748 as my response to your challenge as well.
“No I wouldn’t, because in all honesty I’m really not that interested in trying to get you to change your mind.”
Gawwwd….as has once been said…watching this debate is like watching 2 bald guys fight over a comb.
The “truth” is, if there is any truth left in this argument, that this bill, like the last one, is an admission that our immigration policies have “failed” in an even “bigger” way. Further, it is the recogniition that we can no longer control our borders or deal with or even reduce the growing illegal immigration problem. The last attempts all along the way obviously failed to meaningfully deal with the problem or even get a handle on it….or we would not need to be having this discussion right now with the problem even bigger than it has ever been and growing exponentially.
I’m not so sure that’s something to be proud of (for anybody).
Having said that, here we are….trying to make believe we even have a grasp on the problem (or even the numbers), and we are going to really, really do something about it this time. So, to start with, what to do about all these illegals here in the US who have now taken over large segements of our economy…lets zero out the counter of all those who’ve come here since the LAST zero out bill and make them all legals!!!! There..done. It’s almost funny if it weren’t so sad.
The other side of that compromise is…they pay a fine/fee…register and carry cards that leave it up to us to enforce and have to administer and keep up with. So, who are all these new rules for??? Them?? or us??? I guess it’s both…ie..compromise. But, I digress.
The changes to this bill, were to address “our” (opponents of the original bill) concerns and arguments. Further, it’s rather disengenous and hypocritical to cite security and enforcment provisions of this bill in your argument, when they were added through amdendment against PROTEST by the proponents of this bill and positions you support and only are being accepted after trying to railroad the bill failed, and these ass-clowns got out of their secret room and heard what the larger public was saying about it.
As far as “chicken-littles” go…one could easily say the same for those declaring that we either pass the eariler bill as it was…or have nothing for the future. And here we are…..already…at a 2nd attempt with some further “appeasement” provisions. (smile)
And if this fails..there will be more. Perhaps..an entirely NEW bill that is more centered around enforcement, borders, and putting the responsiblity on people to come here legally or they will be treated as illegals and given the boot ..rather than a blue-light-special citizenship sale. Time will tell. I’ve heard tale that some senators are simply going along with these amendments because they know they can water them down, or strip them out in the process going forward. (that would be people on your side..ie “proponents” of the past bill that cannot/should not be amended).
Most of the arguments you, and others, have remotely or possibly made to us that show some kind of legal / enforcement mechanisms were in this bill are additions made not by proponents of this bill through “compromise”, but by amdendment that the proponents of this bill DID NOT SUPPORT, sought to shut down (and still seek to remove going foward).
Gawwwd….as has once been said…watching this debate is like watching 2 bald guys fight over a comb.
I have to admit, that’s pretty damn funny. LOL.
I think the thing that annoys me the most about the debate is that the hardliners are either complaining we are moving too fast or not fast enough. They are either outraged that anyone would suggest that they want to load up millions of people and deport them all, and then they demand that we deport millions of people.
They complain about amnesty while refusing to acknowledge the fact that a fine is not amnesty, any more than it is amnesty when I pay a speeding ticket.
They just go round and round and always end up in the same place. After all this time, I still do not know what they want. Perhaps, they want to make sure America is more Anglo and because of that they want to keep the natives out. I don’t know, but they are really getting on my nerves.
AJ said: You want my reasons? I listed them in 100+ posts in this issue.
I read every day and I’ve missed those 100+ posts. Could you give me a little guidance
AJ said: “I don’t NEED to repeat what I have written. It your responsibility to go read it.”
Too funny, when you said this to me and I went to your archives and quoted it ver batim, you said I was taking it out of context, so I went back and quoted the entire article and you didn’t respond. Boy, was I surprised that you didn’t respond. If I knew I had a gold plated winning issue, you wouldn’t have to worry about a response, I would be out front with it. But you still won’t discuss the issues, you only name call and talk in generalities. Never answer a question, not one except from your suck ups. Answer R05. No, again, no surprise.
reader2007 “As to knowing what is in the bill, why does that surprise you? And why would it seem odd that since I have not bookmarked AJ’s previous threads on the issue, I would have to spend time going through all of them when the simple solution would be for AJ (the owner of the blog) to link them?†You are the one who issued the request to debate with AJ. You are the one questioning him. If he or anybody refers you to his past posts to get the answer, then if you are TRULY INTERESTED IN HIS ANSWER, you would have been all over his archives. Why does anyone have to spoonfeed them to you? Are you a child?”
You are late to the chase and don’t have a clue, see comment just above, I’ve read a lot in the archives and it is very obvious that AJ has changed his position considerably in the last year and he WILL not answer questions about things he has said in the past because they are 1800 from what he is saying today. So don’t waste your time sucking up, as soon as you disagree with AJ you will be ignored as R05 is currently being ignored.