WAKE UP !

[JG55]

Wake Up!

<12:50 AM 06/11/2013

Mickey Kaus

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Mickey Kaus

In 2007, John McCain’s “comprehensive” immigrant-legalization bill failed after opponents flooded the Senate with calls, shutting down the switchboard. Despite considerable press hype, the bill didn’t even muster a majority on the crucial cloture vote.

It won’t be that easy this time. For one thing, they have a better switchboard, I’m told. For another, the Republican consultants–e.g. Gillespie, Rove–who helped Mitt Romney lose the 2012 election have taken their own failure as an excuse to push what they’ve wanted all along–a business-pleasing immigration policy guaranteeing a supply of inexpensive labor from abroad and a stream of campaign donations to pay Republican consultants. It beats rethinking the rest of the GOP agenda.

In fact, despite all the talk of polarization and Citizens United, the big money in the immigration fight almost unanimously favors a bipartisan, legalization-first bill. Kochs included. The GOP donor class is asserting itself, Ross Douthat has noted. It’s spotted what it thinks is an intersection of crude self-interest, high-minded tolerance, partisan strategy and  libertarian philosophy.

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One of the more influential members of this “donorist” class is Rupert Murdoch, which means that FOX News has for all intents and purposes switched sides, giving immigration “comprehensivists” a monopoly in the MSM–five networks to none. As goes Murdoch, so goes Hannity. 

If you are a Republican who worries that a flood of low-skilled immigrants would drive down wages and make America an uglier place, where the rich have cheap servants but even diligent unskilled work doesn’t afford a life of dignity–well, we’re sorry. We’ve booked our Republican for the panel this week–Senator McCain! A member of the famous Gang of 8! He always puts on a good show, don’t you agree? (If you are a Democrat who worries about immigration and low wages, you probably don’t exist, and certainly don’t hold elective office. In 2007, populist Dems like Senator Byron Dorgan still walked the halls. Now they’ve been driven out–or underground–by the lure of ethnic identity politics).

Worst of all are distractions that weren’t around in 2007.  Probably through sheer bad luck, a series of dramatic scandals has captured the attention of both the press (which would ordinarily be celebrating the Gang of Eight’s epic achievement) and conservatives, who would ordinarily be kicking up a fuss. The distraction factor applies with special force to right-wing talk radio hosts, who instead of mobilizing opposition are pontificating in a daze of either overconfidence (i.e., ‘Democrats want this bill to fail’) or fatalism.You’d think Rush Limbaugh–a rare non-Fox conservative star, who understands what is at stake– might have a good deal of time to spend on the Gang of 8 bill the day before its first test vote in the Senate. You would be wrong. Rush talked mainly about the NSA.

If the conservative public were paying attention, the flaws and crude deceptions of the Schumer-Rubio bill would be common knowledge. They are so obvious, especially in the border enforcement area, that even Sen. Rubio pretends to be dissatisfied with his own bill. Byron York reports that many conservatives are shocked when they learn that Rubio’s bill doesn’t secure the border before legalization. It doesn’t!  â€First comes the legalization,”  as Rubio boasted yesterday. That’s been obvious for months, but now it’s news. (The border security requirements, themselves evanescent, would only prevent legalized illegals from moving to upgrade from legal status to getting green cards and citizenship.)

It’s time to wake up! Conservatives–while you are (rightly) excited about NSA snooping and partisan IRS corruption, the Congress is about to change America in a more profound, permanent way right under your noses. In the process it will hand President Obama the major second term achievement that will help him overcome the very scandals that are distracting you–or, rather, make his survival or re-ascendance unimportant. He will have won. Democrats will have shaped the future electorate to their own liking. They’ll have transformed what America is.

 

Please forget about Benghazi and Cincinnati and Edward Snowden’s girlfriend for a minute and pay attention to the main event.

You have one weapon in your arsenal that can trump the big money behind the Gang of 8 bill (S.744). That weapon is fear. It’s not as if the Republican elite has suddenly been persuaded that an amnesty-first immigration bill is a good idea, after all. They’ve always preferred amnesty. They were just too scared to pursue it. What stopped them was the prospect of swift retribution from the electorate, not limited to the Republican primary electorate.

This fear hasn’t disappeared. The elites were scared of voters before and they can be scared again. This applies to red state Democrats like Mark Pryor and primary-able Republicans like Lisa Murkowski. It applies to fence-sitters like Lamar Alexander. It even applies to those like Kelly Ayotte who have now committed to supporting instant legalization (despite having campaigned against it). If voters now make their displeasure with Ayotte known–well, politicians at the top have a way of backtracking from unpopular stands. That’s how they got to the top. At the very least Ayotte’s difficulties would serve as a cautionary example to others.

There will probably be several big votes–most likely on a House-Senate conference bill–before any amnesty can become law. Speaker Boehner will have to make a crucial decision on whether to break the “Hastert Rule” and try to pass a bill in the teeth of his own caucus’ strongly held views. In every case, fear will be the crucial factor. If Senators fear losing their office if a bill becoming law–and they tend to be highly risk-aware–it often has a way of dying without any fingerprints on it (which is arguably what happened in 2007).

There’s a list of Senate phone numbers and emails here. Numbers USA has a handy page that lets you send a fax here–and a phone option here. The Capitol switchboard is 202 224-3121.

Ignore the f—ing scandals for a few days and save the country from Chuck Schumer.

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2013/06/11/wake-up/#ixzz2VvOnyXnY

 

[Guest 6.8 AR]

That's a good summary of the way statists(people like Rove included)will give away the senate, knowing

full well that their plan will not work. The insane are running the asylum. Fox and people like Hannity can

be truly disappointing in times like this. They let you down when they do things like this.

 

Rush has been having to play Devil's Advocate to stay in the debate all too often, lately. I heard him strain

to answer callers who had him cornered on this and the overall scandal-ridden Obama, yesterday. No point

in going into details because he gets to most of the stories every day, but he has been dwelling on the

triangulating the Republican Party has been doing lately, and agreeing with it, comparing the 1994 races

as his justification. I'm a little disappointed in his dialogue of late.

 

I guess one could use the term "ratcheting effect" on the right side almost equal to the left with this immigration

garbage, when the answer is so simple. With the exception of two or three senators, the rest should be thrown

out and asked to immigrate to Europe.

 

This bill will only kill the midterms for the Republicans and Karl Rove knows it. There's your traitor!

[mav]

 

Ignore the f—ing scandals for a few days and save the country from Chuck Schumer.

 

 

From Rubio as well.  I have stated, for quite a while, my belief that Rubio is a p.o.s.  The thing that ticks me off so much is the talk show mafia is so soft on Rubio instead of knocking his d*** in the dirt.  It is really getting so bad that I almost can't stand to listen to them anymore. 

[Mike.357]

here ya go  

 

There is no difference between dems and repubs.  They are all the same.

 

Vote out any and all incumbents,  Even those who have fooled you into thinking they are the good guys.

[ted]

Here is ya some wake up call watch some of his vids on YouTube gohmert http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7IPc062aWc

[Guest nra37922]

Start teaching your kids to read the Koran in Spanish is all I can suggest

[wjh2657]

The Neocons are nothing but liberal progressives hiding under the Republican banner. Benghazi is over. The man is dead and shouldn't have been put into the country while it was still a combat zone (it still is!) The IRS was doing the same things under Obama that it was doing under Bush (different targets is all!)  While the Republicans play these dead issues for political currency, the country is going to crap. I left the Republican party during Bush#1, when I realized the Neocons had taken over. I am now a Conservative Independent and yes you can be a Conservative without being a Republican! There are too many critical issues that impact all of us and they are being ignored to appease the corporate "get rich on middle class tax payer money" crowd.

 

I am not a Republican nor a Democrat. I am an American and I realized long ago that I have nothing to do with how our government is being run. The Muslims are not the greatest threat to American freedoms, the two political parties are our enemy.

Edited June 15, 2013 by wjh2657

[npgunner]

I am now a Conservative Independent and yes you can be a Conservative without being a Republican!

::mind blown:: "Warning! Warning! Does not compute!"

The idea that you can be a true Conservative and support today's mainstream Republican Party blows my mind. Seems completely impossible. You guys saw the new logo didn't you?

[JG55]

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2013/06/liberals-prepare-to-sell-out-americas-working-class.php

POSTED ON JUNE 14, 2013 BY JOHN HINDERAKER IN IMMIGRATION

LIBERALS PREPARE TO SELL OUT AMERICA’S WORKING CLASS

The Gang of Eight’s immigration bill is nothing less than a frontal assault on America’s already-struggling blue collar population. Forget border security–the bill would be an abomination even if it could magically guarantee that upon passage, not a single person would ever again cross the border illegally. The bill is a disaster because of the legal immigration it will authorize, estimated at somewhere between 30 million and 57 million above current levels over the next ten years. And these new legal immigrants will be overwhelmingly–like, 90%–low-skilled and low-wage. What will that do to the employment prospects and wages–if they’re lucky enough to be employed–of America’s already largely underemployed working class? Unless the Gang of Eight can repeal the law of supply and demand, it will unemploy millions of them and drive down the wages of the rest. Which, of course, is why some business interests are so enthusiastic about the bill.

It sometimes seems that Jeff Sessions is the only voice of sanity in Washington on this issue. Today he said:

 

There are a lot of bad economic arguments being made by supporters of the Gang’s proposal. Their most common theme is that adding 30 million to 50 million new immigrants will increase the country’s GDP. Good Lord, I should hope so! That would be the case, unless every single one of them was unemployed. But that isn’t the standard. If millions of new immigrants do nothing but sell each other tacos and clean each others’ houses, GDP will rise. The question is, will per capita income rise for those who are already here, before the massive influx of tens of millions of new (or newly legal) immigrants?Everyone understands that a large increase in the number of immigrants increases the GDP: more people means more overall consumption. But the question is: who benefits from such a large surge in the available supply of labor into a country? If you suddenly provide legal status to 30 million immigrants, most of whom will be lower skilled, it will simultaneously increase the GDP while reducing per-capita GDP—and reducing the wages of the current workforce. It will hit the lower-income worker particularly hard.

 

Fortune 500 companies will always enhance profit margins from the availability of an increasing supply of lower-skill, lower-wage labor. Any discussion of increased GDP from more foreign workers, therefore, must also look at whose wages are being reduced and whose jobs are being lost.

As Dr. Borjas, the nation’s leading expert on this issue, reported in 2012, recent immigration has reduced the wages of native workers by 5.3 percent, and reduces the incomes of native workers by $402 billion per year. At the same time, the incomes of businesses would go up by $437 billion per year. A report from Northeastern University’s Center for Labor Market Studies found that unskilled immigrants were taking jobs in the construction sector, a sector many young Americans seek to enter.

Right now, nearly 1 in 2 African-American teenagers looking for work cannot find a job. In Washington, D.C., 1 in 3 youths are living in poverty. In Detroit, 1 in 3 households are on food stamps. Is our top economic priority really to provide immediate work permits to 4 million people who overstayed their visas, as this bill does? In addition to the amnesty, the Senate bill proposes, over the next decade, to at least double the annual flow of guest workers while tripling the number of mostly lower-skill permanent legal immigrants. These staggering increases come at a time when 21 million Americans are struggling to find full-time employment. This is not only an abstract economic issue but one of great human importance.

Will this bill make is easier, or harder, for out struggling residents to find a job? Will this make it easier, or harder, for those living in poverty to get a raise and work their way into the middle class?

So while the authors of this bill will inevitably tout the fact that adding 30 million immigrants to the nation will increase the GDP, they won’t say it will be at the expense of struggling U.S. workers—immigrant and native born—who are trying to support their families and climb into the middle class. This is what Dr. Borjas has found. The Senate immigration bill would be the biggest setback for poor and middle-class Americans of any legislation Congress has considered in decades.

We all believe in immigration and will continue to be the most generous nation in the world when it comes to welcoming new people into our country. But a reasonable level of immigration that promotes assimilation, upward mobility, self-sufficiency, and rising wages is in the best interests of both U.S. workers and future immigrants themselves. Polls show the American people overwhelmingly reject a dramatic surge in immigration and, as usual, their common sense is right. The grand plans of business interests for a large increase in immigration may indeed increase the businesses’ income, but it will further expand the wealth gap as incomes for struggling workers will decline.

A friend who is an expert in the field and follows the immigration debate closely comments on the economic fallacies employed by the bill’s proponents:

That pretty much sums up the Democratic Party, but why on Earth are any Republicans on board with their program?

Total output is a completely false measure of prosperity…only output per capita matters, with output relatively broadly distributed based on marginal contribution to output. On the total output measure China is about to surpass the U.S…but with over 4 times the population, and with their economic growth achieved at the cost of massive over-crowding, environmental destruction and pollution it is absurd to think China is more prosperous than the U.S.

It’s all of a piece–extensive growth and aggregate GDP, rather than intensive growth–GDP per capita. And at any price, including huge unprecedented population increases. Unstated, but in the background, is the notion that since we “need” greater population, and greater population growth, for prosperity, defined as aggregate GDP growth, and if we can’t have higher native fertility rates, then let’s have unlimited immigration of highly fertile 3rd world immigrants! It will really crank up the GDP growth engine! Think of all the taco stands and

Charles Ponzi

nail salons!

 

But the real not-so-hidden agenda is the entitlements regime–unfunded, un-means tested, and unsustainable, all exacerbated by a population shift to relatively more elderly but NOT by itself from change in total population. They would rather reinforce the entitlements regime with huge demographic change, actually grossly swindling the New Brown Americans as they take their places as the newcomer Ponzi suckers, than reform the system permanently. If they did reform the system, the entire political structure of the New Class would be seriously damaged. They would rather sell their birthright than suffer a loss of political power.

Edited June 15, 2013 by JG55

[superduty]

Start teaching your kids to read the Koran in Spanish is all I can suggest

It's really sad how true this is.

[JohnC]

Well, I'm in my vehicle with my sister and wife to go stand with the Representatives on the steps of the capitol who are opposed to this immigration bill John Bonehed wants to force the party to vote yes on.

Too bad more folks wont say enough is enough and start showing their faces in opposition to all this crap they're doing in Washington.

And I believe that is what they're counting on is folks being lazy and not doing shit about anything they impose on us.

It's not like I wanted to lose the sleep or spend the hundreds of dollars I really don't have right now, but I refuse to sit on my ass and do nothing but complain.


Sent from my iPhone

[Guest ArmyVeteran37214]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_UWHuC6nqyo

[Guest 6.8 AR]

When you lump in all the Democrats and Republicans with their leaderships you are doing both a mis-service.

The leadership of the parties are who are doing the damage, not you and I. People like Karl Rove are causing

the cronies to go for this bill, not the voting majority, and they are causing us to have the inferior candidates.

 

Participation is mandatory to push back against bills like this. Without it, this country is doomed.