Brent Nyitray
Fairlington Blade
Let the mutherfuker burn!
jnc4p
Kevin S. Willis
Michigoose
lmsinca
markinaustin
Memetrics
novahockey
quarterback
ScottC
yellojktI hope all of you have the very best year ever!
(I was trying to get all artsy-fartsy and add some fireworks, but for some reason my links keep breaking. . . oh, well, the thought was there!)
Filed under: 2013 and beyond, Open Thread | 8 Comments »
With Experts Like These. . .
Posted on October 29, 2013 by Michigoose
Suzanne Somers is an Expert, who knew?
Somehow I don’t think that this is quite what the WSJ anticipated when it gave the former actress and lifestyle guru access to their editorial pages:
CORRECTIONS AND AMPLIFICATIONS:
An earlier version of this post contained a quotation attributed to Lenin (“Socialized medicine is the keystone to the arch of the socialist state”) that has been widely disputed. And it included a quotation attributed to Churchill (“Control your citizens’ health care and you control your citizens“) that the Journal has been unable to confirm.
Also, the cover of a Maclean’s magazine issue in 2008 showed a picture of a dog on an examining table with the headline “Your Dog Can Get Better Health Care Than You.” An earlier version of this post incorrectly said the photo showed and headline referred to a horse.
And, in case you didn’t know, evidently Obamacare is taking the place of Medicare, if what Ms Somers writes in her editorial is true about Obamacare’s effect on the elderly. You heard it here first!
Filed under: 2013 and beyond, PPACA | Tagged: Goofy | 54 Comments »
Baltimore Bound
Posted on August 18, 2013 by Michigoose
Hitting the highway now. Have a great Sunday, and I’ll catch up with you somewhere east of here!
Filed under: 2013 and beyond | Tagged: Adventure, Moving | 7 Comments »
Hump Day Craziness
Posted on July 31, 2013 by lmsinca
I read this yesterday and it lead me to some interesting questions. Well, they were interesting to me anyway. I’ve been fascinated with the different factions of the Republican Party and the increased number of Libertarians who primarily seem to vote Republican when there is no Libertarian around to vote for. This piece mentions the possible break between Evangelical Christian Republicans and conservative Catholics over the new Pope’s recent comments regarding gays and poverty. It appears to me that Libertarians have also broken with the Christian wing of the Republican Party over many social issues. I’ve learned from our discussions here that Libertarians seem to be for both open borders and abortion, in some cases “on demand”, even I don’t believe in either of those suggestions, so is that to the left of me?
I guess I’m wondering where all this will eventually lead. How hard will it be for Libertarians to vote for a Republican of the evangelical sort? Is it just a case of voting for the lesser of two evils in a Presidential election, or even a local election? When do your votes and principles collide? I swallowed my objections and voted for Obama because of health care, and a couple of other accomplishments I supported, rather than third party, which is what I normally do. A big fat wasted vote either way really.
My thoughts rambled from the original piece but I wanted you guys to see how it got me thinking. I’m finding it somewhat interesting that I tend to vote social issues and for the preservation of things such as Social Security, Medicare and other safety net protections. There doesn’t seem to be that much difference to me in the reality of economic policy between the parties or for that matter even foreign policy now that many conservatives seem to be more isolationist than they were in the past, but I’m guessing the Libertarians/Conservatives here don’t agree and vote their pocket book, or is it all big vs small government and the demolition of the safety net that motivates y’all. I’m curious. It seems to me that the differences between us are more along the lines of priorities. I think we all value similar things but just place more weight on some than others. Or maybe I’m delusional.
I think it is a safe bet that if Pope Francis I lives more than a few years that Catholics will soon be kicked out of the Republican Party and resume their previous status as the semi-black race. The reason is simple. Pope Francis I is on the opposite side of the political divide from Pope John Paul II. The Polish pope was a Cold Warrior who basically took the Reagan-Thatcher line on left-leaning political movements in the Third World, including in Latin America. The Argentinian Jesuit pope isn’t a communist, but he advocates for the poor without any apology.
For now, conservative American Catholics are trying to parse the distinction, but it isn’t going to work. They are not going to be able to embrace The Slum Pope who wants to “make a mess” of the established order within the Church by encouraging young people to shake up the dioceses and force them to embrace the convicts, drug addicts, and the truly impoverished.
Our country is uniquely unable to appreciate this change specifically because our right wing succeeded in categorizing the left in the Third World (and, to an extent, even in Europe) as communist in sympathy. The right assumes that the Vatican is an ally in all things, but that is no longer even close to being the case. On so-called family values, the papacy is still reliably conservative, even if it can’t be counted on anymore to demonize homosexuality. But on economic issues, the papacy is now a dedicated enemy of the Republican Party.
Before long, the right will have no choice but to break from the pope, and then their opposition will grow to a point that the alliance between Catholics and evangelicals will not hold.
There sure has been a lot of talk lately about women. I’ve been troubled by some of it as it seems we’re going backwards in some respects. There are too many stories to link but between all the states enacting TRAP laws, all the strange definitions of rape, the mayor of San Diego’s bizarre harassment and who has and has not shielded him from investigation, the treatment of rape victims in the military, USC redefining rape as not rape if there is no ejaculation (my personal favorite), who is and isn’t hot enough to either run for office or other more nefarious activities, etc. etc. that I’ve been trying to figure out what’s going on. Maybe nothing ever really changed. I’m concerned that so much of it has become political football. I thought this piece on the subtleties of how a woman can succeed in the financial industry was pretty troubling.
Our youngest is working in another male dominated industry and is constantly trying to determine how to proceed on her merits while most of the men are attracted to her looks. She has a few male mentors who seem to take her seriously so she’s focusing on that and trying to stay away from the guys who want to date her and stay focused on her work. She’s discovering it’s an interesting dynamic that has many challenges. She faced numerous challenges as a grad student but that was nothing compared to what she’s dealing with now.
It doesn’t help when other women give this kind of advice.
New details have emerged from a bias lawsuit filed by three former employees of Merrill Lynch against the company, which alleges that during training they were instructed to read a book called “Seducing the Boys Club: Uncensored Tactics From a Woman at the Top” and emulate its advice.
The tips in the book, published by New York Magazine’s The Cut, are truly shocking. “I play on [men’s] masculine pride and natural instincts to protect the weaker sex,” says a section of the book advising women on how to get men to do their work. “Unless he is morbidly obese, there is no man on earth who won’t puff up at this sentence: Wow, you look great. Been working out?” suggests a portion on diffusing tense situations.
On a lighter note the Anthony Weiner story is in another realm altogether in my opinion. I guess I’d like to know why his wife is standing by him but it’s none of my business really. Otherwise it seems to be a case of “consenting adults” which doesn’t bode well for his marriage or his candidacy but otherwise is just more creepily entertaining than anything else.
I wish I could share all the “Carlos Danger” jokes my husband has come up with, they’re hysterical, and just pop out of his mouth at the most inconvenient times. He’s a true comic and I’ve thanked my lucky stars more than once that he makes me laugh. Anyway we’ve had a lot of fun at Anthony Weiner’s expense around here. I saw this and couldn’t resist.
Anthony Weiner Forever
Filed under: 2013 and beyond, big government, comics, conservatism, Elections, homosexuality, Libertarians | Tagged: Abortion, immigration | 81 Comments »
TEXAS—–OMG
Posted on July 9, 2013 by lmsinca
I’ve been out of touch the last couple of days due to network issues with wordpress but you’ll be happy to hear I’m back….hah. And contrary to popular opinion Scott isn’t the one who’s always bringing up abortion……I am. You might be asking yourself, why? I’ll tell you why, because there are at least 10 states where the legal right to an abortion has been compromised to the point where they’re threatening the health of women who are in their reproductive years.
If what’s happening in Kansas is true I think it’s one of the most outrageous backwards slide in women’s healthcare that I’ve heard of recently and that’s balanced against the fact that I just found out we’re sterilizing female prisoners apparently against their will here in CA still.
Kansas
The first is a troubling provision to redefine what constitutes a medical emergency so that pregnant women experiencing life-threatening complications — including hemorrhaging, infection and ruptured ectopic pregnancies – would be forced to wait at least 24 hours before obtaining an emergency abortion. After signing the legislation that would imperil the lives of pregnant women in medical emergencies, Republican Gov. Sam Brownback remarked: ”All human life is sacred. It’s beautiful. With this, we continue to build this culture of life in our state.”
And that brings me to Texas from the same link above:
And while Texas’ current battle over reproductive rights has grabbed unprecedented national attention, this isn’t the state’s first rodeo. During the 2011 legislative session, Texas lawmakers passed a two-year budget cutting $73 million from family planning programs. In 2012, Gov. Rick Perry dissolved the state’s partnership with the federal Women’s Health Program and forfeited millions in Medicaid funding for low-income women’s healthcare. Republican lawmakers were unabashed about the reasoning behind such extreme measures, which was, as state Rep. Bill Zedler, R-Arlington, openly acknowledged to “defund the ‘abortion industry.”
Perhaps, as many conservatives claim, there are more women out there who support these restrictive measures than I imagine there are, and so I guess we’ll see what happens now that the GOP has picked abortion as their social issue of the decade since they’ve lost the war on gay marriage.
The occupation of the Texas state capitol by angry women caught the national imagination, perhaps due to the drama of Davis’s “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” moment, which immediately went viral over the social networks. Similar mass protests by women have taken place elsewhere, too, including last week in Ohio — a pivotal presidential election state — where the Statehouse was crowded with women dissenters.
The importance of Davis’s stand, however, is the way it has inspired a nationwide discussion about the creeping encroachment on abortion rights that has been taking place without widespread media coverage in statehouses across the nation.
And I read somewhere yesterday that a pro-life protest in Austin with about 1,000 protesters bussed in from out of state was over run with over 5,000 local women and men protesting the upcoming abortion bill that’s sure to pass the TX legislature and be signed by the Governor. I submit that this legislation is quite possibly happening not only against the will of the people but that the Texas GOP will pay a price. Here’s a poem an abortion activist by the name of Katie Heim read yesterday which seems oddly appropriate for Texas.
If my vagina was a gun, you would stand for its rights,
You would ride on buses and fight all the fights.
If my vagina was a gun, you would treat it with care,
You wouldn’t spill all its secrets because, well, why go there.
If my vagina was a gun, you’d say what it holds is private
From cold dead hands we could pry, you surely would riot.
If my vagina was a gun, its rights would all be protected,
no matter the body count or the children affected.
If my vagina was a gun, I could bypass security,
concealed carry laws would ensure I’d have impunity.
If my vagina was a gun, I wouldn’t have to beg you,
I could hunt this great land and do all the things men do.
But my vagina is not a gun, it is a mightier thing,
With a voice that rings true making lawmakers’ ears ring.
Vaginas are not delicate, they are muscular and magic,
So stop messing with mine, with legislation that’s tragic.
My vagina’s here to demand from the source,
Listen to the voices of thousands or feel their full force.
And honestly, I keep thinking I’m done discussing the abortion issue, and then another state passes what I consider a life threatening restriction, or another Republican lawmaker makes a bone-headed statement and here I am again pointing it out. I’m way beyond the point of caring about the issue personally, but as a woman, I think it’s important to keep the issue front and center as long as there are conservatives trying to undermine and reverse the right to abortion that women currently have to the extreme extent they’re doing it.
Filed under: 2013 and beyond, TEXAS | Tagged: Abortion | 88 Comments »
Monday Morning
Posted on June 17, 2013 by lmsinca
Brent said the Morning Report would be spotty this week so I’ll start with an open thread and a few interesting (to me anyway) links.
This probably seems like a mistake in hindsight.
Foreign politicians and officials who took part in two G20 summit meetings in London in 2009 had their computers monitored and their phone calls intercepted on the instructions of their British government hosts, according to documents seen by the Guardian. Some delegates were tricked into using internet cafes which had been set up by British intelligence agencies to read their email traffic.
The revelation comes as Britain prepares to host another summit on Monday – for the G8 nations, all of whom attended the 2009 meetings which were the object of the systematic spying. It is likely to lead to some tension among visiting delegates who will want the prime minister to explain whether they were targets in 2009 and whether the exercise is to be repeated this week.
In addition to the piece above Snowden isn’t helping himself or us if this is true.
Former NSA employee, and famed PRISM whistleblower, Edward Snowden is now leaking top secret documents that appear to have nothing to do with the NSA eavesdropping on Americans, and everything to do with hurting the United States’ national security position vis-a-vis Russia before a key Obama-Putin summit.
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In light of the above information it should be an interesting G8 talk Obama is scheduled to give defending our phone and internet surveillance systems. I have to wonder what those folks will be thinking.
President Barack Obama will defend U.S. phone and internet surveillance efforts during G8 talks next week, explaining to other leaders the importance of the tools in fighting terrorism, and safeguards in place to prevent abuse of the data
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It’s nice to see a company that pays it’s employees well actually do well. I’ve also heard that Costco employees stick around for years and years and they even have a college education program for people who want to advance within the company.
The big box giant’s profit jumped 19 percent to $459 million last quarter, thanks in part to the company’s efforts to offer discounts to lure more members, according to Bloomberg. The company was able to offer those discounts and boost its profits while paying its workers a decent wage, a claim many of Costco’s competitors can’t make.
A typical Costco worker made $45,000 in 2011, according to Fortune. That’s compared to Sam’s Club workers’ average salary of $17,486 per year, according to salary information site Glassdoor.com.
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I don’t know if any of you saw this interview with the young Air Force guy with PTSD caused by being a drone operator. I remember thinking that the drones seemed like a good idea for modern warfare, and maybe they are. I think they save American lives but I’m not sure we’ve gotten their use right yet.
Doesn’t it seem as though we’re not adapting very well to all the new technology and we haven’t actually thought everything through sufficiently?
This is a report on the interview from Richard Engel, but there’s also video at the link.
Bryant said that most of the time he was an operator, he and his team and his commanding officers made a concerted effort to avoid civilian casualties.
But he began to wonder who the enemy targets on the ground were, and whether they really posed a threat. He’s still not certain whether the three men in Afghanistan were really Taliban insurgents or just men with guns in a country where many people carry guns. The men were five miles from American forces arguing with each other when the first missile hit them.
“They (didn’t) seem to be in a hurry,” he recalled. “They (were) just doing their thing. … They were probably carrying rifles, but I wasn’t convinced that they were bad guys.“ But as a 21-year-old airman, said Bryant, he didn’t think he had the standing to ask questions.
He also remembers being convinced that he had seen a child scurry onto his screen during one mission just before a missile struck, despite assurances from others that the figure he’d seen was really a dog.
In 2011, as Bryant’s career as a drone operator neared its end, he said his commander presented him with what amounted to a scorecard. It showed that he had participated in missions that contributed to the deaths of 1,626 people.
“I would’ve been happy if they never even showed me the piece of paper,” he said. “I’ve seen American soldiers die, innocent people die, and insurgents die. And it’s not pretty. It’s not something that I want to have — this diploma.”
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And last but not least from the great state of CA, we passed a budget Friday that made our stingy (hahaha) Governor almost as happy as the other Democrats. As you probably know Republicans have essentially been side lined. It ‘s the opposite of states like WI and others where Republicans control all levels. This piece mentions health care quite a bit and emphasizes how much Obama and others are hoping for a successful implementation here.
Drew Altman, president and chief executive of the Kaiser Family Foundation, said the success of the federal healthcare law hinges largely on the outcome in California.
“California is pace-setting, and everyone in health reform is watching very closely,” he said. “It’s hard to imagine its success until it succeeds in California.”
Many of the healthcare changes are riding on this year’s budget and a series of related bills among those lawmakers are expected to take up Saturday.
“California really couldn’t move full speed ahead” until the budget passed, said Chris Perrone, a director at the California HealthCare Foundation. “It clears the path to a lot of work that needs to happen.”
That work includes computer upgrades to process new patients and outreach efforts to ensure that more people enroll in health plans.
Healthcare was one of the final sticking points in budget negotiations this year. Brown insisted on allowing the state to scale back its coverage if federal money is reduced.
Filed under: 2013 and beyond, budget, California, civil liberties, NSA | Tagged: afghanistan, drones | 36 Comments »
What Kind of Whistleblower Would You Be?
Posted on June 11, 2013 by lmsinca
I’m not sure what to think about this Snowden guy. I tend to think the government certainly has an obligation to hold secrets when it comes to national security and yet obviously the American people deserve to know, and I think participate in, the process by which we give up so many of our legal rights in order to acquire that sense of security.
Diane Feinstein thinks he should be tried for treason and John Boehner calls him a traitor.
Political opinion in the US was split with some members of Congress calling for the immediate extradition from Hong Kong of the whistleblower, Edward Snowden. But other senior politicians in both main parties questioned whether US surveillance practices had gone too far.
Dianne Feinstein, chairman of the national intelligence committee, has ordered the NSA to review how it limits the exposure of Americans to government surveillance. But she made clear her disapproval of Snowden. “What he did was an act of treason,” she said.
House Speaker John Boehner defended the NSA programs and their congressional oversight, saying he had been briefed on the programs and that Americans were not “snooped on” unless they communicated with a terrorist in another country.
“He’s a traitor,” Boehner said of Snowden in an interview with ABC News. “The disclosure of this information puts Americans at risk, it shows our adversaries what our capabilities are, and it’s a giant violation of the law.”
Daniel Ellsberg believes Snowden’s leak is the most important example of whistleblowing in history.
In my estimation, there has not been in American history a more important leak than Edward Snowden’s release of NSA material – and that definitely includes the Pentagon Papers 40 years ago. Snowden’s whistleblowing gives us the possibility to roll back a key part of what has amounted to an “executive coup” against the US constitution.
For the president then to say that there is judicial oversight is nonsense – as is the alleged oversight function of the intelligence committees in Congress. Not for the first time – as with issues of torture, kidnapping, detention, assassination by drones and death squads –they have shown themselves to be thoroughly co-opted by the agencies they supposedly monitor. They are also black holes for information that the public needs to know.
Ellsberg seems to think this event will give Americans both the incentive and proof we need to rise up against this “surveillance state”. Ha, based on the polling I’ve seen this week and comments from both government officials and public forums I’ve been reading, most people don’t really care that much or simply accept it’s the trade off for being safe.
And it seems to me we have two different kinds of justice being handed out for whistleblowers. Thanks to Dodd/Frank (don’t get me wrong, I know it’s a crappy bill) the SEC has newly enacted protections for financial whistleblowers and the government has reaped the benefits to the tune of millions of dollars.
In just its first year, the whistleblower program already has proven to be a valuable tool in helping us ferret out financial fraud,” then-SEC Chairman Mary L. Schapiro said in November 2012. “When insiders provide us with high-quality road maps of fraudulent wrongdoing, it reduces the length of time we spend investigating and saves the agency substantial resources.”
The SEC’s Investor Protection Fund awarded the Commission’s first Whistleblower Award Program recipient in 2012, but the case and individual haven’t been made public. The Fund represents monetary sanctions received from settlements of SEC cases, including penalties, disgorgement, and interest. The balance at the end of fiscal 2012 was $453 million.
And on the opposite end of the spectrum Obama appears to undermine his own support of protections for whistleblowers, at least in the area of National Security.
The federal appeals court granted another hearing on May 24, and the Obama administration rushed out a memo asking the Director of National Intelligence and the Office of Personnel Management to quickly come up with a litmus test for deciding which federal positions can be classified as being “sensitive,” citing a 2010 OPM proposal that aimed to dramatically expand the number of national security employees.
Whistleblower advocates say the court ruling and the president’s memo spell a major rewiring of the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act. “It’s not that OPM and DOJ are arguing that whistleblowers in sensitive positions shouldn’t have access to protections. It’s an unintended consequence that they have not tried to prevent,” says Angela Canterbury, public policy director at the Project on Government Oversight, where I used to work. “The Obama administration is undermining the same protections they [formerly] supported.
There are at least five whistleblowers who’ve come up against the heavy hand of the Obama Administration via the DOJ recently.
The Obama administration has waged a war on government whistleblowers. So here are 5 whistleblowers who have been under attack by a president who once said that official whistleblowers were “often the best source of information about waste, fraud, and abuse in government.
Check out the Thomas Drake case:
4. Thomas Drake
A former executive at the National Security Agency, Thomas Drake exposed details about the agency’s Trailblazer Project. For this, he was charged under the Espionage Act, though the government’s case against him spectacularly failed.
Drake became concerned about the Trailblazer Project’s cost–at $1 billion, it was way more than the NSA should have been paying for a program they could have instituted in-house. He was also concerned it would violate the privacy of Americans. But Trailblazer, which was supposed to analyze intercepted communications, was chosen to be the NSA’s vehicle for surveillance anyway. Drake disclosed details about the NSA’s wastefulness to a Baltimore Sun reporter.
The government initially threw the book at him, but their case collapsed. As Marcy Wheeler explained in The Nation: “The Department of Justice had been pursuing Drake for alleged violations of the Espionage Act that might have sent him to prison for up to 35 years. But the government withdrew the evidence supporting several of the central charges after a judge ruled Drake would not be able to defend himself unless the government revealed details about one of the National Security Agency’s telecommunications collection programs.” Drake was eventually convicted on the misdemeanor charge of exceeding authorized use of a computer.
I’m really curious what all of you think of the whistleblower issue in particular, but of course I’m also wondering if anyone thinks there’s a reverse of the surveillance state possible. Is surveillance state too strong of a descriptive? Do you think Obama is really to blame or is it just the result of an overzealous government at all levels since 9/11?
Filed under: 2013 and beyond, civil liberties, Constitution, NSA | Tagged: 9-11, whistle blower | 42 Comments »
Immigration Reform-ATiM Style
Posted on June 7, 2013 by lmsinca
I’ve been thinking about this post all week and trying to come up with a clever angle to get a discussion going. After a few brief exchanges with some of you I realized that most of us probably support some variety of reform that leads to citizenship, so what’s there to discuss right? One thing I’d like to understand more clearly is why some of you support open borders or how you think that would actually work in reality. I’m also curious about what everyone thinks the chances are of the Senate bill passing first the Senate and eventually the House. I’m not really expecting it to pass the House at this point but think it might squeak past in the Senate. And also, at 844 pages with 300 amendments already offered isn’t it just another boondoggle anyway?
The first thing I had trouble finding was a good summary of the bill, I love you guys but I’m not willing to read that many pages of gobbledegook to come up with the gist of the bill. I’m reading a book I’m really enthralled with right now and am not giving that up for ATiM. The best summary I could find was Marco Rubio’s…………..funny huh?
Here are a few highlights:
This legislation contains the toughest border immigration enforcement measures in U.S. history. It is based on six required security triggers that must be achieved before the newly legalized are allowed to apply for green cards. These six triggers include:
1. Border Security Plan: DHS must create, fund and initiate a border security plan (within 6 months of bill’s enactment).
2. Border Fence Plan: DHS must create, fund & initiate a border fence plan (within 6 months of bill’s enactment).
3. Border Security Metrics: DHS must achieve 100 percent border awareness and at least 90 percent apprehension rates in high-risk sectors of the U.S.-Mexico border (within 5 years of bill’s enactment).
4. Border Commission: If DHS fails to achieve #3, a Border Commission of border state officials and stakeholders is required to create & implement a plan to achieve 100 percent border awareness and at least 90 percent apprehension rates in high-risk sectors of the U.S.-Mexico border (within 10 years of bill’s enactment).
5. Employment Verification: Universal E-verify must be implemented (within 10 years of bill’s enactment).
6. Exit System To Stop Visa Overstays: Visa exit system must be implemented at all international airports & seaports (within 10 years of bill’s enactment).
Modernizing
Conservative Economists Say Modernizing Our System Will Grow Our Economy And Create Jobs: The modernization of our legal immigration system will be a net benefit for America as we make historic reforms towards a more merit-based immigration system that will help us attract entrepreneurs, innovators, investors, skilled workers and people driven by the desire to build a better life for themselves and, in turn, create jobs for American workers.
Protecting American Workers: This bill protects American workers from unwarranted immigration for jobs that Americans are willing and able to do. For example, the proposal would not allow any work visas to be issued if the unemployment rate in a certain area is above 8.5 percent, which is the norm in many cities.
Highly Skilled Workers: After educating the world’s brightest and most innovative minds, we will no longer send them home to benefit competing economies like China and India; we will instead staple green cards to their diplomas. We will also expand the highly skilled H1-B visa program from 65,000 to 110,000 to fill jobs Americans can’t do. To accomplish the move to a more merit-based immigration system, we eliminate certain categories of family preferences that have allowed for chain migration and completely eliminate the diversity visa lottery, among other reforms.
Guest Worker Program: The bill establishes a guest worker program for lower-skilled workers that ensures our future flow of workers is manageable, traceable, fair to American workers, and in line with our economy’s needs. The modernization of our visa programs will ensure people who want to come legally – and who our economy needs to come legally – can do so.
Agricultural Worker Program: A new agricultural guest worker visa program would be established to ensure an adequate agricultural workforce to safeguard our food supply. This program will also allow current undocumented farm workers who have made a substantial prior commitment to agricultural work in the United States to obtain legal status.
And then it goes on to detail how the bill deals with the illegal immigrants here now. It explains why it’s not amnesty, how they’re going to deny Federal benefits until certain criteria are met, what to do about children (dreamers) brought here unwittingly by their parents and how the path for immigrants who came her illegally will be longer and more difficult than it is for those who chose the legal path. There’s a lot in there, and you can tell where the compromises are.
Here are a few comments from various people here that I would love to hear more about and am also wondering what everyone thinks of the bill the gang of eight crafted.
Mark: I am for need based immigration. I think we should permit immigrants with talent and skill to come here and apply for citizenship after five years. I think we should allow many more immigrants in toto than we do now. But I want them to actually learn American history and become acculturated and be fluent in English before they take their oath of citizenship. I want their knowing and proud allegiance to our country. And I don’t want extended family reunification – I want it limited to spouse and minor children.
I agree with George that immigrants are our lifeblood. But without selectivity, I believe we can get blood poisoning.
Brent: On immigration, I am to the left of both parties. Our economy’s biggest growth came during periods of greatest immigration. While there is a correlation / causation issue there (were immigrants flocking to the US because the economy was great or were immigrants making the economy great?) I think we need an influx of young people to balance out the aging baby boom generation. Since we can’t go back and change fertility rates, well that leaves immigration.
McWing: I’d give citizenship on day one, also, I wouldn’t have any language requirement though I would not publish anything official in anything other than English. A common language is important, IMO. And since I think the welfare state will collapse anyway, sure, let them have at it, though I dont think that is why the overwhelming number of immigrants come here, for welfare. I, perhaps naively, think they come here to live and work in a society who’s governent interferes in their lives less than where they came from. Also, they’ll be paying taxes, so the schools will be funded adequately. I hope the parents demand English only/immersion for their kids, to give them a fighting chance once they hit the working world. I don’t think the border states will be swamped, people move to where there are jobs, immigrants are no different.
Scott: I am instinctively in favor of open borders and easy immigration. But that cannot coexist with the kind of welfare state that we now have. I suppose if you assume the welfare state as it exists must eventually collapse anyway, then accelerating it and getting on with the recovery process sooner rather than later makes sense. In which case open borders and immigration is even more attractive.
Perhaps more of you have weighed in and I missed it so I’m curious what the rest of you think and is there any chance that the Senate bill is a launching pad for the kind of reform each of you wants? As a Californian with a keen interest in Mexico and it’s people I probably wouldn’t go as far as McWing, although I might be persuaded, but the bill looks a little constipated with stumbling blocks to me.
There’s been all sorts of coverage lately and I’ve read a lot of it but one of the most interesting to me was this email exchange Greg Sargent had a couple of days ago on Cornyn’s suggested compromise and perhaps thwarting Presidential aspirations:
This has put Marco Rubio in a box, and it needs to be acknowledged that Cornyn’s move really does threaten the prospects for reform. Frank Sharry, of the pro-immigration America’s Voice, explains why in an email to me:
“Cornyn is trying to box Rubio in, and if he does, we’ve got a problem. Cornyn is taking dead aim at hardening the triggers – threatens the path to citizenship in a big way – in hopes of dragging Rubio to the right. The problem is that Rubio going right loses many Dems. Dicey moment. Cornyn stepped out in front with a proposal for more border security in way that undermines the path to citizenship. Rubio either goes with Cornyn — to look more conservative — and threatens the bipartisan core support for reform, or says no to Cornyn and looks weak, damaging the chance to get 15 Republicans to come in board.”
In other words, Cornyn has undercut Rubio by staking out a position much further to the right of the Gang of Eight compromise that Rubio had been taking.
I’ve read, in a variety of opinions, that the only way immigration reform will pass is if Republican leadership and the big donors want it to pass and they’ll have to pressure Boehner to put it up for a vote and hope the Democrats will get it across the finish line. I can’t help but wonder if that would finally be the end of Boehner’s Speakership though.
Filed under: 2013 and beyond, ATiM, Marco Rubio | Tagged: gang of eight, immigration | 142 Comments »
In the News Now
Posted on June 3, 2013 by lmsinca
Grand Old Party for a Brand New Generation
There was a lot of internet chatter about the above “GOP for a New Generation” report today. Out of curiosity I decided to read it. It was really interesting and while it doesn’t have much to do with our recent discussion of whether the Republican Party has moved right or not, I think it’s indicative of where they could use some improvement.
I happen to be the mother of young voters just outside of this under 30 age group, and because I’ve enjoyed watching their political views form so much, I thought this was a great study.
To be clear, in addition to the parts I’ve excerpted, they also polled economic matters, the size of government (interesting results there), the environment, and also discussed the use of social media and other sources of political news.
The following report assesses the findings from a variety of studies on young voters, including a new March 2013 survey conducted for the College Republican National Committee (CRNC), and makes recommendations about how Republicans can begin this work today.
We believe that Republicans can win young voters but that it will require a significantly different approach than has been used in recent elections.
Health Care
Health care remains a second-tier issue behind the economy and the national debt. In the August 2012 XG survey, only 8% of young voters said it was their top issue, and just 27% named “lowering health care costs and improving care” as one of their top two or three priorities in the March 2013 CRNC survey.
Nonetheless, the issue is at the top of the second tier in both surveys and came up frequently in our focus group research. In the August XG survey, young voters handed Democrats a heavy advantage on the issue, preferring their handling of health care to Republicans by a 63-37 margin. Some 41% thought things overall would be better as a result of Obama’s health care reform plan (versus to 32% who said things would be worse).
Many of the young people in our focus groups noted that they thought everyone in America should have access to health coverage. In the Spring 2012Harvard Institute of Politics survey of young voters, 44% said that “basic health insurance is a right for all people, and if someone has no means of paying for it, the government should provide it”; 23% disagreed.
Admittedly, there were concerns about the cost and quality of health care under the ACA but in general the young people gave Obama credit for trying.
Immigration
While immigration wasn’t a major issue it appeared it might be an issue that could turn a voter against a conservative candidate who they agreed with on taxes or other economic issues but disagreed with on immigration reform.
The position taken most frequently by young voters was that “illegal immigrants should have a path to earn citizenship,” chosen by35% of respondents. Closely behind this were the 30% who preferred the “enforcement first” strategy of securing the border and enforcing existing immigration laws. Some 19% chose “illegal immigrants should be deported or put in jail for breaking the law,” while another 17% took the position that “illegal immigrants should have a path to legal status but not citizenship.”On the issue of laws that “would allow illegal immigrants brought to the U.S. as children to gain legal resident status if they join the military or go to college,” three out of four (75.3%) young adults agreed in an October 2012 poll conducted by CIRCLE. And young voters for the most part knew how the candidates in the election stood on that issue; in that same survey, 63% of respondents said that Barack Obama was the candidate who supported “allowing many illegal or undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States as children to remain in the country,” while only 3% said that was Mitt Romney’s position.
Abortion
This really surprised me; I knew it was pretty close but not quite this close. In this case I wish Dems would alter their position a little to make room for a more tolerant culture of life position, but I repeat myself.
The results debunk the conventional wisdom on the issue and establish that not all “social issues” are viewed the same. Indeed, only 16% of young voters preferred that abortion be legal in all cases, while 32% said abortion should be legal “up to a certain point.” Combined, that comprises 48% who take a position leaning toward legality. On the other side, 37% felt abortion should be illegal with exceptions, and 14% thought abortion should always be illegal, making a combined 51% who lean toward prohibiting abortion. On this issue, there is small gender divide, with men in the survey actually tending to lean more pro-choice than women.
Where the Republican Party runs into trouble with young voters on the abortion issue is not necessarily in being pro-life. On the contrary, the Democratic Party’s position of pushing for abortion to be legal in all cases and at all times, including some recent laws around how to handle medical care for babies born alive during abortion procedures, is what is outside the norm of where young voters stand. Unfortunately for the GOP, the Republican Party has been painted – both by Democrats and by unhelpful voices in our own ranks – as holding the most extreme anti-abortion position (that it should be prohibited in all cases). Furthermore, the issue of protecting life has been conflated with issues around the definition of rape, funding for Planned Parenthood, and even contraception.
In the words of one pro-life respondent, “The Planned Parenthood thing for me is not so much about abortion; it’s about counseling before you can get to that point, and I feel that that’s a big part of what they do, is contraception counseling and about being safe.”
Bingo
Gay Marriage
Perhaps no topic has gotten more attention with regards to the youth vote than the issue of gay marriage. And on this issue, the conventional wisdom is right: young people are unlikely to view homosexuality as morally wrong, and they lean toward legal recognition of same-sex relationships. Only 21% of young voters in the Spring 2012 Harvard Institute of Politics survey felt that religious values should play a more important role in government, and only 25% felt homosexual relationships were wrong. Young people nowadays are more likely than ever to know someone who is openly gay or lesbian, and that factor is correlated with attitudes supporting same-sex marriage.
Surveys have consistently shown that gay marriage is not as important an issue as jobs and the economy to young voters. Yet it was unmistakable in the focus groups that gay marriage was a reason many of these young voters disliked the GOP.
The conclusion of the report discusses five areas where they think the GOP can improve their chances to win over a larger percentage of the youth vote and they explain their methodology and whatnot.
I’m still working on an immigration post, just thought this was interesting and current considering all the references I read about it today on both sides of the political divide.
Filed under: 2013 and beyond, gay marriage, GOP, healthcare | Tagged: Abortion, immigration | 26 Comments »
What the Hell is a Moderate Anyway?
Posted on May 30, 2013 by lmsinca
I enjoy reading political writers who have both a sense of humor and ask thought provoking questions. When I read this brief piece by booman, it resonated with me.
What constitutes moderation in Democratic politics? Which policies of mainstream Democrats are simply unacceptable to South Dakotans, for example? I think these are questions that need to be empirically tested. South Dakota clearly preferred Mitt Romney to Barack Obama, but it isn’t entirely clear why they felt that way. While Republicans absolutely dominate on the local level, the Democrats have done very well in recent years on the federal Senate/House level. Why is that?
These same dynamics have played out in North Dakota and Montana, where Democrats have over performed in Senate contests. Senators like Max Baucus, Jon Tester, Byron Dorgan, Kent Conrad, Tim Johnson, and Tom Daschle have certainly been frustrating at times, but it’s hard to find all that much commonality between them in terms of their apostasy from the party platform. I suppose they have probably been less environmentally friendly than your average Democrat. They’ve been cozy with the banking and credit card industries. They’ve been a bit more socially conservative than their peers.
If I had to name something really out of whack, it’s been their obsession with the deficit. Because the other stuff is easily explainable by the fact that they represent sparsely-populated states with a lot of mining and financial services activity and not much religious or ethnic diversity, their love of austerity sticks out.
Opposition to big spending seems to be a requirement in these northern plains states. Is that the key ingredient for success? Or is it possible to use a different playbook? How much of a role does personality play? Jon Tester and Max Baucus don’t seem much alike but they both have success. Kent Conrad struck me as quite a bit more conservative than Byron Dorgan, who could be quite openly partisan at times.
I understand the urge to find a candidate who is seen as moderate, but I can’t pinpoint what moderate really means.
I’m working with a group trying to find a congressional candidate to support who will run against our very conservative congressman here. The last time we came close to beating him was in 2008 and we had a pretty progressive candidate who barely lost. In 2010 the same candidate lost by a larger percentage. And 2012 was awful. We lost by 25 or 30 percentage points I think, but we’re not sure if it was from redistricting or because of a new and relatively unknown candidate. Both worked against us of course, but which played the larger part?
We’re a very conservative district, perhaps even more so now, and so I’ve been arguing for a more moderate candidate but I think I’m being out voted. It’s a pretty liberal group so they want the most progressive candidate we can find.
One of the aspects of politics today that I’ve been fascinated watching is the apparent growing split in the Republican Party between the more ideologically driven members of the base or Tea Party and more traditional or moderate conservatives. As I’m sure everyone has already heard Bob Dole had a few things to say about today’s Republican Party.
“Reagan couldn’t have made it. Certainly, Nixon couldn’t have made it because he had ideas,” he pointed out. “I just consider myself a Republican, none of this hyphenated stuff. I was a mainstream conservative Republican. It seems to be almost unreal that we can’t get together on a budget or legislation,” Dole said, comparing today’s Congress unfavorably with the institution in which he served for decades. “We weren’t perfect by a long shot, but at least we got our work done.”
Another example, of course, would be John McCain’s criticism of the small group of Senators who appear to be blocking budget negotiations.
I consider myself a moderate on some issues and a progressive on others but I’d still rather be represented by a Democrat than a Republican so I’m willing to compromise a bit.
It’s funny, when Kevin picked the name for this blog, I told him I wasn’t a moderate but now I’m not so sure what that even means or if it matters.
I’m also wondering if any of the conservatives here worry about the same things I do. Are they being too driven by the base, or political purity, when they might have a better chance at winning more elections if the moderates, or more traditional members of the party had a little more influence? Or is winning with moderates some sort of cop out?
Filed under: 2013 and beyond, Congress, Democrats, moderates, politics, Republican Party | 134 Comments »
All Things in Moderation 