Schumer lost bigly ...

 

I am told that what broke Schumer was the polling evidence over the weekend that this time the Democrats were not well supported by he American people in shutting down the government over the fate of the DACA registrants, a question that was already under bi-partisan negotiation and one in which DJT had publicly asked Congress to send him a bill to sign that contained both a solution on that issue and provisions to toughen immigration and border security standards.

It appears that the Negotiator in Chief won this round by waiting the Democrats out and that Senate Majority Leader McConnell led his side to victory.

It was clear to me from the distribution of the Democratic Party vote that the Left is seeking more than permanent legal status for present DACA registrants.  IMO  they are seeking a general further relaxation of immigration law and continuation of visa lotteries, chain migration and the like in the belief that for them, the more immigrants from poor countries, the better since they believe that in eventual future amnesties such people will gain citizenship and will vote Democratic.  pl

Comments

[Laura]

I'm not so sure. CHIP is no longer in play and the Senate is relearning how to legislate without paying much attention to the White House. Perhaps the middle is starting to re-form. Time will tell...

[TV]

McConnell agreed to a debate and a floor vote on DACA.
No guarantee that the vote will pass, much less the House passing it or Trump signing it.
And yes, Colonel, you're 100% correct about the Democrats goals.
They're quite willing to turn America into a third world toilet to gain an electoral advantage, willfully ignoring that open borders also means drugs and terrorists.

[TonyL]

It was a cruel and disgraceful move on their part to attach CHIP to other bills. Finally, something both sides can agree on.

[Bobo]

The analysis is spot on.
There are 11 million undocumented (illegal) aliens in the USA of which 800 thousand are DACA registrants and another 1.2 million plus eligible DACA registrants. So bringing on the Dreamers as citizens will not be cheap or timely. The Dreamer story of individuals being brought here at less than 16 years of age is one that most Americans can emphasize with as it tears to the heart of who we are as Americans.
Reality is, we do not want this to happen again so what to do.
Bring the Dreamers in as citizens in stages, the non registrants though eligible in later stages. Tie the legislation together with how do we stop this from happening again. Drop the immigration lotteries, beef up Border protection, build the wall, create realistic legal immigration policies then figure out what we will be dong with the other 9 million illegals living in this country.
Anything less is a no go and reason to call your legislator and hold their feet to the fire. As for the Democrats you have a long ways to go.

[Hood Canal Gardner]

Was Graham a stalking horse or is he as well damaged goods?

[Jack]

Sir

I tend to agree with you that "Schumer lost bigly..". Trump's frame that the Democrats shut the government down because they want to support illegal immigrants and not our combat soldiers was getting a lot of traction in middle America. The Democrats couldn't handle the political perceptions that Trump's frame created.

I spent a bit of my reading time this past weekend reviewing material that Patrick Armstrong and blue peacock have provided regarding the Obama administration conspiracy to use the powers of our law enforcement and national security apparatus for partisan purposes. IMO, the media has intentionally not given this story any prominence. Additionally they are trying very hard to obfuscate the evidence being uncovered. I believe by later this summer this story will become a raging fire as the testimony of many of those who played an active role will become available. There is even evidence that Obama knew about Hillary's private server and that Hillary communicated with him using this server in an unsecure manner. This is shaping up to be a major conflagration that could consume the Democrats.

[The Twisted Genius]

Laura,

I agree with your point about the middle starting to reform. It may not last, but Trump's reneging on the public deal he voiced with Schumer and the antics of Stephan Miller pretty much pushed the Whitehouse out of the picture.

[Lemur]

'chain migration' is more accurately construed as 'nepotistic migration', since whole streams of immigrants are being inducted purely though links of kinship rather than merit.

[turcopolier]

TTG

The deal that Graham and Durbin brought to the WH was not the deal that Trump had been led to expect. https://www.politico.com/story/2018/01/22/graham-durbin-immigration-white-house-357359 In regard to the Schumer meeting on Friday there seems to be no agreement as to what was "agreed" to. pl

[turcopolier]

HCG

Graham is a monument to the toleration of South Carolina for eccentrics. pl

[Laura]

How do you decide whom to believe on this? I really can't figure it out because why would Durbin and Graham lie about what they were coming to talk about...it wasn't a fait accompli or even an actual numbered bill? And, if Trump wanted it changed, why wasn't the discussion about how to do that and still keep it bipartisan? Trump may be a "dealer" but he isn't a legislative deal-maker or horse trader.

I just don't see Durbin and Graham "setting up" Trump --- it is no advantage to them to have him blow up and shut off negotiations. Most legislators from city council on up just want to come to a consensus, get the vote, and go home for the evening...

[Fred]

Lemur,

And most of them are from countries that will, upon gaining citizenship, immidiately make them elegeable for preferential treatment as protected class minorities under our affirmative action laws. That of course can't get discussed.

[TimmyB]

I have a different view. The Democrats controlled the House, Senate and Whitehouse between 2008-10. Did DACA pass then? No. Did the Democrats shut down the government over it? Of course not. Why?

The obvious answer is they didn't care about it. They still don't. The claim they want DACA to pass so they can pick up DACA recipients is a joke. The Democrats are using DACA as a pretext to attack Trump. If it wasn't DACA, which polls at 70%, it would be something else.

BTW, DACA does next to nothing to fix our undocumented worker problem. It does nothing to provide a path to citizenship for 90% of the undocumented. We should provide all undocumented a path to citizenship.

However, having a large labor pool of people who are paid low wages and work in substandard conditions is great for the people who own this country. Not only is it easy to take advantage of those workers, but they also depress wages and working conditions for the rest of us. Additionally, they are easy for demagogs to scapegoat.

If this country really wanted to end illegal immigration all it would need to do would be make it a felony to hire an undocumented worker and, for each undocumented worker hired, the culprit would serve a mandatory one year in prison. If a corporation does the hiring, the president of the corporation serves the sentence. We don't really have an illegal immigration problem. Instead we have a hiring of undocumented workers problem. Harsher punishment of employers would end illegal immigration in a week.

BUT THAT WILL NEVER HAPPEN because the people who own this country won't allow it. Instead, we will waste billions on walls so government contractors can get rich. As if people outside those wall don't know about ladders or tunnels. What a joke.

[Huntly]

I think this was a push; CHIP is now off the table, and if the REPs don't come around on DACA in Feb. they won't have anything to use as a hostage.

[ked]

Very impressive deal - goes all the way to Feb 8th. Long live continuing resolutions, the little game of Capitol Hill.

[Dabbler]

One of the levels on which Schumer lost is cojones. As the Republicans have proved, there is value in continuing to stand, regardless of the specifics. Schumer wilted because “polls”. I sense a longing within the Democratic base for vertebrate leadership.

[turcopolier]

Huntly

DACA is a good enough hostage. pl

[different clue]

Bobo,

(reply to comment 4),

As you say, slow and regulated legal status for the Dreamers seems the humanitarian thing to do, since many of them were sneaked in as minor to very minor children by older parents or relatives who know the law and knew the risks.

So how to make sure it doesn't happen again with another round of illegal immigrants bringing their unwitting pawn children? I don't know if one could make sure of it if we permit this round of dreamers to stay, but we could at least demonstrate that a social and emotional price will be paid.

And this will be the price: every single adult-at-the-time-of-entry relative that any Dreamer who gets legalised has . . . will be deported and will be forbidden from entering the US ever again for any reason. All the adult relatives of permitted Dreamers will be declared Personae Non Grata. No member of their extended families who reMAINED in their country of origin will be permitted to enter the US for any reason. Ever. Every member of their extended families will be declared Personae Non Grata. This barrier should be maintained for 50 years or a hundred years or however long it takes for the people living in every Dreamer's country of origin will know that the Dreamers and all their families have paid a price and will continue to pay the price that keeps on paying.

As to the left, the Clintobamacrat culture left all thought shutting the government down over DACA was the thing to do. Some relict commentators from the old political-economy left cautioned the DemParty that "DACA" was not the hill to die on for impressing the American electorate for the next election. (However they may have felt personally about the issue).

[turcopolier]

Laura

Your description of politicians as bovine, placid characters who want nothing more than quiet and a good dinner seems to me to be more a description of Hobbits in the Shire than any politicians I have known from city to national. pl

[Bill H]

By all means, lets grant a "path to citizenship," otherwise known as amnesty, to the DACA class, and let's make it clear that it is a one time deal and will not be repeated, so people not yet in this country should not come here illegally in the assumption that they will eventually be granted amnesty because, to repeat, this is a one time deal and will not be repeated.

Oh wait, we already did that in 1986, granting amnesty to some four million illegal immigrants and warning future illegal immigrants not to come here on the assumption of another amnesty because this will never be repeated. Except we now want to do it again 25 years later, but this time for ten or twelve million illegal immigrants.

And, bye the way, the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 did make it illegal to employ persons not in this country legally, and created the Form I-9 to verify legal status.

[Fellow Traveler]

Nothing would crash the TX economy faster than ICE raids on Lennar or Pulte Homes corporate offices and construction sites.

[confusedponderer]

Bobo,
"Drop the immigration lotteries, beef up Border protection, build the wall, create realistic legal immigration policies " ... all that is nice, and sensible basically. But still, there are things to be solved to do all that.

It starts with money and having money.

As with the wall, Trump is demanding that Mexico will pay for it - great deal done, and by demand alone, without hassling negotiations! And perhaps re-twittered.

That sounds awesome and is, in its own way, awesome, but doesn't work. Mexico won't pay for this toy idea of Donald Trump, they don't have the money and no interest to pay for and to build a wall to lock themselves off America or to make Don happy.

All these things, not just the wall, will have to be paid for and they won't happen without money, as the recent shutdown drama illustrates.

And yet, Donald before christmas, as a present probably, has lawed a tax reduction (iirc the only law he signed in his first year in office, playing golf a lot costs time apparently ...) that will reduce money flowing into the budgets. All that with the assertion that, as if Don was pissing from his Trump tower, "the benevolence will trickle down to the voter".

Well, it likely won't, and then, it will reduce money in the budgets. What that'll lead to is that Trump will have an excuse to gut things like ... the EPA (an organisation that they hate anyway) "to save money". Iirc the man who, thanks to Trump, lords over the EPA is famous for having called to abolish it for years. Call it 'reformation by destruction'.

Will America be made safer, more prosper and richer? No way. It makes no sense, won't work, but for a second it feels good.

It's as with Trump's 'making America great again'. I read yesterday that security folks that keep him safe are 'making America great again' wearing uniforms made in other countries ... because they are cheaper than ... say ... Marvel costumes. The compromises that have to be made even with the grandest grand plans start early.

[ambrit]

Sir;
I had to laugh. Your comment immediately bought to mind the former Representative from South Carolina, Preston S Brooks and the 'caning' incident of 1856. Eccentric indeed. Tolerant, well..... (He resigned, and was promptly re-elected.)
ambrit

[Jose]

If you provide a path to 9 million, what are you going to do with the other 18 million who are going to come get their citizenship?

People that came illegally should not be rewarded for breaking the law.

I'm an immigrant, but came here legally.

[BabelFish]

Cynical as hell. Chuckie gets to have his TV drama about the heartless GOP trying to exit good, even great people who got dragged over the border. He is loathsome.