Well I am really hoping the airport is operational at 6 AM tomorrow... I am heading for Detroit and then Beijing again. (yippeee... :-( ) I'll check in when I can...
I think I agree with Ezra that the DEMs fared okay with the shutdown gambit. They still have the leverage, the GOP knows they are serious, etc. The big question is will all those idiots start acting like moderate adults or will they keep caving to their most extreme constituents? Thoughts?
CNN How DEMS Lost the Shutdown?
VOX DEMs did not Cave
MinnPost Why?
MinnPost Outrage
VOX Shutdown
I think I agree with Ezra that the DEMs fared okay with the shutdown gambit. They still have the leverage, the GOP knows they are serious, etc. The big question is will all those idiots start acting like moderate adults or will they keep caving to their most extreme constituents? Thoughts?
CNN How DEMS Lost the Shutdown?
VOX DEMs did not Cave
MinnPost Why?
MinnPost Outrage
VOX Shutdown
32 comments:
from Ezra at Vox:
"13) The central political problem in American life, for years now, has been that the Republican Party is a dysfunctional institution that has abandoned principles of decent governance in order to please an ever more extreme base. I don’t have an answer for fixing that. But it would be doubly bad if their outrageous behavior drives Democrats to use the same tactics in response. American politics is, hopefully, an infinite game, not a finite game, and that means doing everything possible to steer away from retaliatory loops that clearly lead to the system crumbling."
Well I didn't agree with everything he wrote... :-)
I mean the DEMs are fighting these common sense things to placate their far Left base...
1. DACA fix
2. Increased security at the border
3. Deporting illegal workers ASAP
4. Significantly reducing chain migration
5. Significantly minimize the visa lottery program
6. Focus on criteria based immigration
What rationale do they have for putting the wants of border jumpers and visa over stayers above the needs of US citizens?
Speaking of that aggressive Far Left.
CNN Progressives Fume
The question I would ask is did the American people lose the shutdown?
--Hiram
Here is one answer. BBC Shutdown Cost
"I mean the DEMs are fighting these common sense things to placate their far Left base...
1. DACA fix
2. Increased security at the border
3. Deporting illegal workers ASAP
4. Significantly reducing chain migration
5. Significantly minimize the visa lottery program
6. Focus on criteria based immigration"
What do you mean? Democrats have offered proposals on #1, #2, #4, #5, and #6, and voted in favor of a bipartisan immigration bill in 2013.
As to who won or lost, it depends on what happens next. If the Dems actually get a vote on the bipartisan DACA bill (which isn't at all assured), then they've won. And Mitch McConnell (if he's serious about solving DACA) has then successfully laid the problems in the lap of Paul Ryan and Donald Trump.
Otherwise, they're likely to be in the same place three weeks from now. It's not as if Mitch McConnell particularly cares about the norms of the Senate. He's already broken promises to members of his own caucus, so he's not going to think twice about sticking it to Schumer.
And it also really comes down to the question of whether or not Republicans really want to fix DACA or not. I suspect that most of them really don't and are upset that the President upset the apple cart here. They were content to let them linger with TPS so they could mouth sweet nothings about them but now that they're being forced to reckon with doing something permanent they're beginning to choke on it.
Sean,
Sorry but their offers seem pretty weak. They are too worried about how "unwelcoming" the USA seems rather than controlling illegal entry.
What do you think they see as an acceptable number of illegal entries each year?
Laurie seemed pretty happy the net illegal immigration was down to ~0... Which of course means ~250,000 people per year are still getting
Over a thousand people escape North Korea every year. Expecting to get the number of illegal entries down to zero is absurd. Democrats believe in taking reasonable, common sense steps to control the border. We don't need to militarize it. We don't need a 2,000 mile wall. Most drugs, by the way, come across the border not via the wastelands, but rather smuggled through border crossings.
And, again, purely from a negotiations perspective, Democrats aren't going to give away the farm to get Republicans to do something they all say they want to do anyway. Republicans do want a "bill of love" for the DACA folks, right?
“Give away the farm”...
Secure borders, correct immigrants to meet America’s needs, fewer illegal workers competing with actual citizens, construction and security jobs, etc.
What is their to dislike?
Republicans act like many of these issues are binary choices. They aren't. You don't need to end chain migration or the visa lottery or clamp down on refugees to bring in more high-skilled workers. We can take more legal immigrants (and we should).
But we must stop illegal migration or it is all somewhat pointless.
And I don’t want to end chain migration or lotteries or refugees. Just reduce their volume relative to the criteria based.
We apparently allow 1+ million folks per year to immigrate legally to the USA. How many do you want? Remember there 3,000 million who wish they were here.
As for the where is John game... I am on a plane in Seattle, waiting to take off for Korea... Then on to Beijing. Good thing is that somehow I got upgraded to business class.
Champagne before takeoff... I could get spoiled...
60% of your 1 million figure are change of status, not new entrants.
Do I have an exact number in mind? No, not off the top of my head. But when we're facing shortages in several employment categories over the coming decades, increasing the pool seems like a good idea.
"And I don’t want to end chain migration or lotteries or refugees. Just reduce their volume relative to the criteria based."
What Democrats proposed in the latest fight was a step in that direction. And Republicans -- particularly the President -- walked away from a deal that they said they would take.
"If the Dems actually get a vote on the bipartisan DACA bill (which isn't at all assured), then they've won"
I don't even know how to parse that sentence.
-- We need to stop thinking of Congress as a battle where one side wins and the other loses. I long for the days when the assessments are statements like "a victory for common sense."
-- Dems keep insisting that we have "bipartisan" bills, and then vote in lockstep to prevent bipartisanship. If a Democrat breaks ranks to make a bill bipartisan, they "lose."
-- And what makes bipartisanship the goal? Shouldn't the goal to produce GOOD legislation, that solves the problem in the most effective and common sense way?
One can argue for a "compassionate" treatment of those youngsters who are in "the only country they've ever known," kept their noses clean and are or will be productive citizens. But you cannot declare amnesty-- full or partial-- for several hundred thousand people and assume they all fit such a benign characterization.
There is no such logic for a visa lottery, nor for unlimited chain migration. And those arguing that the "wall won't work" have the obligation to say what WILL stop border-jumping. Otherwise it sounds as if they are in FAVOR of such endless lawbreaking.
It seems to me that it's Republicans who are blocking the "bipartisan" bill. Graham-Durbin could get at least 50, and possibly 60 votes in the Senate but it's being blocked from the floor.
I don't know what is in that bill, but the Senator known as "Sen. Grahamnesty" is probably on the wrong side of the issue in promoting it. Again, the measure of "goodness" is not how bipartisan it is, but how well it solves the problem. I hope we don't "have to pass the bill to find out what's in it." Obamacare was a purely partisan bill, so it must be bad, right?
Ok. I finally made it to my hotel... Thank heavens.
Sean,
Apparently there are 1.2 million green cards per year. Do you have a better source?
Jerry,
As for "Shouldn't the goal be to produce GOOD legislation, that solves the problem in the most effective and common sense way?"
That sounds great if everyone agreed on the goal, the concerns, people did not have self interests and they could foresee all the intended and unintended consequences.
Though if the goal is to:
- stop illegal immigration
- stop smuggling
- remove illegal workers from the economy
It certainly does seem the DEMs are fighting those good goals for some reason.
However if they see the problem as there are 3 Billion needy people in the world. Their solution of keeping our borders porous and providing sanctuary / pardons may make sense...
Sean,
I do agree that it is stupid how much control the majority leaders in Congress have over what gets voted on.
It's often said that the founders didn't like parties. But what doesn't get considered enough is what politicians of that time thought parties were, and what it was about them exactly, they didn't like.
In 1787, Britain didn't have parties with any kind of organizational structure. That came later, in the era of Disraeli, who was basically the founder of what we understand today as the modern Conservative Party, and that's not something the founders in 1787 could know about. What you did have in 1787, were loose coalitions of various power centers, landed gentry vs. the aristocracy. Insustrialism was on the rise in 1787, but those early industrialists had not yet become political powers.
One main difference between our constitutional system and the British system of that era was the fact that it linked the election of house members to popular vote. It also apportioned house districts based on population. That was different from Britain of that era, when the system had rotten boroughs, effectively under the control of dominant political powers, often landowners. Was that the system the founders were aware of and rejected?
--Hiram
"Apparently there are 1.2 million green cards per year."
A number of those green cards, though, go to people who are already here under other statuses -- primarily people here on temporary visas (like college students, frequently).
Wiki: Immigration to the U.S.
"Their solution ... may make sense...
All of which proves the old adage that "common sense is not common, in fact quite rare."
I used to say that it was difficult to understand liberals, but I am starting to believe that Democrats are more difficult still.
If we are difficult to understand, that's a problem in language. None of this is rocket science. The concepts aren't difficult to master even when we disagree with them. There is an irony in the fact, that many liberal positions were once conservative positions, which gives us an added insight into conservative thinking. Obamacare is an example of that.
--Hiram
Language is only a problem to the (very common) case of where one side defines it differently than the other. For example, the "affordable care act" would normally indicate one thing, but the reality indicates it means quite another. So long as one side insists that the "intended" definition represents the reality, the other side sees a complete disconnect and understanding is completely lost.
Sean,
Even if they are "here under other statuses", the issuance of the green card is apparently the official beginning of immigrating here permanently. Just because I have a 10 year visa to do business in China means nothing.
So I think the 1+ million per year is accurate.
Jerry,
Yes "Affordable" can be interpreted in different ways. The GOP supports the sale of cheap low coverage "affordable" policies that will likely leave many people and the government hanging with big bills and/or more bankruptcies.
The DEMs support taking a lot of money from the successful folks to subsidize the purchase of quality healthcare policies by the unsuccessful people. Thus making it "affordable" to them, what was not before.
Both are correct...
Both are correct interpretations of the term, yes. One is the "normal" definition and the other requires some mental gymnastics. But the underlying question is, why isn't the normal definition the one we all agree on and use? Is it because "government-required and taxpayer-subsidized health care" was too hard to say?
OH, and back to the original question, the latest polling overwhelmingly says yes. If you think polls matter.
Probably because your definition of normal varies from what the majority of Americans seem to believe.
As for the topic, I think they lost a battle. However the war seems far from over.
It is good to see that maybe the White House is actually rising from its slumber. Better late than never...
affordable (adj): able to be afforded : having a cost that is not too high. So do millions of people disagree with the definition? All I see in your citation is that they want health care to be free. Again, how well-informed are the people of whom we ask these biased, near-irrelevant questions?
I've been asked several times now if anyone I know has lost their insurance coverage or had their rates increase because of Obamacare. I always answer yes and, in groups, I'm far from alone. THAT is a poll that I believe.
As for the topic, if the next battle is fought on the same turf and terms as the last one, they will lose again.
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