“Insane”.
The Republican Party is making a point of not mentioning “Impeachment”. In fact just yesterday, Famously Insane Rep. Steve King (R-IA) said this:
“I think Congress has to sit down, have a serious look at the rest of this constitution, and that includes that ‘i’ word that we don’t want to say,”
He was talking about the other “I” word, “Immigration” and making sure that President Obama knew that trying to fix the immigration crisis via executive order (yes, the same crisis that Speaker Boehner (R-OH) begged him to fix via executive order) would trigger Impeachment.
Why is Rep. King so adamant about this? Because he is the author of HR 5272, aka, The Republican Party Suicide Note. He was bursting with pride over it:
“The changes brought into this are ones I’ve developed and advocated for over the past two years,” he told CQ Roll Call. “It’s like I ordered it off the menu.”
Well, as one who wants the Republican party to shrink into Irrelevance (another great “I” word!), seeing them following the lead of Steve King would be something I would order off the menu.
The Wall Street Journal is not as Impressed with what it called the GOP’s Deportation Caucus:
The conservative editorial board of The Wall Street Journal reamed into congressional Republicans in an editorial published in Saturday’s paper, after the House passed a bill Friday night that effectively would put the status of nearly 700,000 young undocumented immigrants in limbo.
Readers may recall that the last Republican in an election year to support deporting immigrant children brought here through no fault of their own was Mitt Romney. A splendid voter attraction that was.
“The episode is also sure to raise doubts among swing voters about whether Republicans would be prepared to govern if they do win control of the entire Congress,” the Journal’s editorial board wrote.
Govern??? Has the Wall Street Journal not been paying attention? The purpose of the Tea Party Caucus has not been to govern but to bring government to a standstill by refusing to fund essential services.
But I digress.
Why is HR 5272 so worrying to the Wall Street Journal and the Karl Rovian Republicans who realize that you actually need a stable functioning government to do business … and who would like that government to be run by Republicans?
A lot has been said about demographics. The far-right has pooh poohed the notion that the Latino vote is important, saying that the GOP simply needs to get more old white people to the polls. I say, go with that thought!! Because the thing about old white people is that they are, quite simply, old. It may be a short term solution but in the long run, perhaps not the best strategy.
It has not gone unnoticed that Republicans do not like the looks of the people at the border:
Republicans knew what they had to do to make an appeal to Latino voters [in their post election report]. But rather than follow their own prescription and embrace a new approach, they splurged on their old habits, binging on anti-immigrant rhetoric and indulging their worst nativist instincts. Indeed, the past few months have seen Republicans come unhinged at the mass arrival of child migrants and refugees from central America, with warnings of disease and mayhem.
After the RNC released its report, Latino Decisions published a poll on Hispanics, immigration reform, and the GOP. Among all Hispanics, 32 percent were more likely to vote Republican in the future if comprehensive immigration reform passed. What’s more, a later Latino Decisions poll-this time of Latino registered voters-found that 61 percent would be more likely to listen to Republicans on issues like taxes or school choice if the party supported reform.[…]
[The GOP] wants a larger portion of the Latino vote – lest it be crippled in future national elections – but it doesn’t want to pass immigration reform, lest it alienate core supporters. But there are no shortcuts to building respect and goodwill. If Republicans want more than a rump share of Latino voters, they’ll need to shift on immigration reform.
The DACA, Deferred Enforcement for Child Arrivals, executive order is very popular among those Latino voters. Ed Gilgore, on a more recent Latino Decisions poll:
I would assume that Republicans are at least dimly aware that the anti-DACA provisions they are toying with to get conservatives on board a border refugee bill will come at a political cost. If not, they should check out this reminder from the polling firm Latino Decisions:
The push to dismantle DACA will significantly alienate Latino voters according to recent surveys carried out by Latino Decisions. President Obama’s 2012 administrative order on DACA, which provided temporary relief to more than 550,000 undocumented young people was overwhelming supported by Latino voters. In our June 2014 poll with the Center for American Progress, 84% of Latinos said they would be more enthusiastic toward the Democratic Party if DACA was renewed by President Obama in 2014. This high level of enthusiasm cuts across all segments of the Latino electorate….
I am not sure how the GOP recovers from the optics of their party, led by Rep. Steve King (R-IA) and Rep. Michelle Bachmann (R-MN), smirking at the passage of a bill that calls for the immediate deportation of children who arrived in our country without papers, many of whom have since graduated from college and even served in the military. And the reminder that the DACA is an executive order which can be rescinded should a Republican president become elected.
By the way, it is important that the Republicans do not get away with the claim that they passed a bill to fund the border crisis so they are off the hook. We need to make sure that the anti-DREAMer bill they passed after that funding, as a big sloppy kiss to their base, follows them around like a piece of toilet paper stuck to their shoe.
President Obama also noticed that the Immolation Wing of the Republican Party seems Intent on Insanity:
So the argument isn’t between me and the House Republicans. It’s between the House Republicans and Senate Republicans, and House Republicans and the business community, and House Republicans and the evangelical community. I’m just one of the people they seem to disagree with on this issue.
So that’s on the comprehensive bill. So now we have a short-term crisis with respect to the Rio Grande Valley. They say we need more resources, we need tougher border security in this area where these unaccompanied children are showing up. We agree. So we put forward a supplemental to give us the additional resources and funding to do exactly what they say we should be doing, and they can’t pass the bill. They can’t even pass their own version of the bill. So that’s not a disagreement between me and the House Republicans; that’s a disagreement between the House Republicans and the House Republicans.
I hope it becomes a disagreement between the House Republicans and the American people and that the American people realize that the only way to win this argument is to fire those House Republicans and hire some people who agree with them. Here are a few:
“I stand with those children at the border and I stand for due process,” Rep. Al Green (D-TX) said on the House floor Friday morning, evoking the teachings of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. “I don’t stand for a fast track adjudication that mimics due process and makes a mockery of justice. I stand with the DREAMers. They have been given hope by our president. I will not vote for a bill that will destroy hope for those DREAMers. We must keep their hope alive.”
One by one, Green and about 29 other House Democrats took to the House floor in a show of solidarity with the migrant children affected by the legislation that they were opposing. They requested, “I ask unanimous consent to bring H.R. 15, a bipartisan comprehensive immigration reform bill, to properly address the humanitarian crisis at the border.” Each time, Rep. Tom Cole (R-OK) refused to yield to the request and “reiterated that all time yielded is for the debate.”
And a few more:
“This, in all honesty and candor, is one of the most mean-spirited and anti-immigrant pieces of legislation I’ve seen in all of my years in the Congress,” said Rep. John Conyers (MI), the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee.“In the end, the Republican position on immigration can be summed up as: deport ’em all,” said Rep. Luis Gutiérrez (D-IL). “You know it is suicide as a political strategy, but you continue to say deport ’em all.”
Please proceed, GOP, please proceed. May your Irrelevance be Imminent.
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