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That means you too, Rahm Emanuel.
Headline from New York's election results last night:
And in Virginia, here's the headline:
Okay, so, in Virginia, immigration demagoguing did not help Republicans, and in NY, despite the quotes from party insiders justifying their abandonment of Spitzer as saving the day and a voter quote cherry picked by the NYT editors to suggest Democratic voter "concern," there's really no evidence that immigration demagoguing moved votes to the GOP. At all.
The NYT article reminds me of how Rahm Emanuel took credit for 2006 after his original DCCC short list did lousy, the people on his late changing list did better after he added some of our Blue America candidates to shore up his stats, after he spent the major part of the cycle telling everyone to STFU about Iraq. Then after the election, he took credit for the "thumpin'," when it all happened in spite of him, not because of him.
You're a fucking genius, there, Rahm.
Sorry, but until I see real data that says voters in NY were actually moved to vote based on immigration or opposition to Spitzer's plan, I'll remain of the opinion, confirmed by results all over and from the past, that the scary brown people code language moves votes among the racist fringe and not among Democrats, nor among liberal/progressives. These are not votes we're ever going to get and trying to pretend we should want them is political malpractice and moral suicide.
So, New York Democrats, what was all the "Spitzer is KILLING us!" stuff really about, if not Joe Bruno's successful attempt to get the longs knives out within the state party against Spitzer, with love from Andrew Cuomo?
I'm with Jane: I'm not getting it either, or rather, maybe I do get it, and I don't really like the obvious answer.
[photo by rauchdickson]
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First zed?
Pach!
G’day.
singles! whee!
Hi Pach!
(whispering) Am I 3rd? Wow!
Thanks for the good news. Is it possible the topic will now be abandoned, do you s’pose?
And may I say that Lou Dobbs and Rahm Emanuel (and Joe Bruno and Andrew Cuomo) can all go p*ss up a rope.
Congratulations Boxturtle, now follow me behind the door to the office over here and we’ll fill out the paperwork so you can take home your certificate.
You do have ID on you, right?
/snark.
Congrats, really.
tejanarusa @ 5
The republicans only know how to run on hate and the democratic party are to coward to call their bluff.
“political malpractice”: I love it
Somebody suggesting that maybe Spitzer could look more Presidential than HRC if we were allowed to see him?
tejanarusa @ 5
No, it will take a while longer to drive a stake into the heart of this racist zombie lie. Sadly.
Hey Pach!!
And hell yeah tejanarusa, wouldn’t it be lovely if they just let it go?
They won’t of course, but it’s good to see sensibility on part of the voters. Now, we just need that to trickle UP *stares long and hard at the politicians*
boxturtle @ 1
Congrats… BoxTurtle! Excellent post, Pach!
Bustednuckles @ 7
Hmmm… I’ve never been lead there… :P
Lou’s one trick pony just died.
Why is it that when I think of Rahm, I see Schumer right over his shoulder?
Is there some history there that I am conveniently forgetting?
Can we finally discard the ‘Illegal’ nomenclature already, ‘undocumented’ is more apropo, and I certainly applaud Spitzer’s answer to that canard…
Bustednuckles @ 15
Chuck is the Senate campaign money man.. Rahmen noodles with the House campaigns.
Lou Dobbs blowing the dog whistle and only the mutts are following him home.
JPL @ 8
Run on hate and LOSE ON HATE
Please, oh please let there be enough Americans to make this so.
This is just another case of the Beltway CW being wrong the way it has been wrong anytime the last 7 years. This has never stopped those who espouse it from making further erroneous predictions. Why should it? They have never had to pay any price political or otherwise for their bad advice. Indeed many of them have made a career out of it.
Shush Pach! the GOP might hear you we want them to keep taking outrageous stands on phony culteral war wedge issues.
Especialy when voters think the War in Iraq and Healthcare are the biggest issues.
We want them to waste their media MSM talking heads time pushing issues voters don’t and won’t care about as long as we have a war we’re losing and no healthcare.
We need to figure out ways to encourage them to keep making mistakes of this kind. We need to keep them angry and swinging at their own stawman boogeymen.
Immigration is a tough issue for me. My instinct is “They’re lawbreakers, deport the lot of them”. But that won’t work and we all know why.
Sooo….I’ve joined the “admit defeat” group. The illegals that are here already have beat us at our own game. We set the rules, we owned the gameboard, we employed the referees…and they still made it in and in many cases built the kind of life any American would be proud of.
These are the kind of folks I want as citizens. Send ‘em back? Hell, no!
I say make them pay their back taxes, with interest & penalties just like any American citizen. Then make them citizens. No fines, no “return to home country to do paperwork”, etc.
Boxturtle (Gotta figure out how to secure the borders as well)
CTuttle @ 16
What did Spitzer say?
I have changed my outrage-ometer over to War on Christmas mode anyhow.
I get angry about the Messicans in the spring.
Nows the time to protect the Baby Jesus.
-Redstate Bumslapper
GSD @ 24
Praise the Lord and pass the gravy.
From MyDD:
While the focus on Clinton’s debate performance has largely been on her inability to articulate a clear position on the driver’s license question, this poll suggests that it’s perhaps her apparent support for Spitzer’s plan that may be causing this drop.
Just 19% of Democratic Primary Voters in New Hampshire believe that drivers licenses should be made available to undocumented workers. Sixty-six percent (66%) disagree. A separate survey released yesterday found that Democrats nationwide hold similar views with 68% opposing the policy.
tejanarusa @ 23
Provide a special Driver License for them, hence, documenting their existence…
Rahm, Pelosi, Reid, DiFi, Hoyer, Boxer, “HRCDLC” and Lieberman do not speak for me.
dakine01 @ 6
You know, I once thought Lou was okay, since he was advocating for the middle class. Sadly, he has gone completely overboard and become as big a joke as Rahm Emanuel.
How many of us live in pristine white neighborhoods these days? Maybe Georgetown is lilly-white, but even in reasonably affluent suburbs around the country the color mix is growing. It wouldn’t surprise me that all of these nativists live in obscenely wealthy, gated communities. But those of us in the real America have lived with a growing immigrant population for years. And you know what, it’s a good thing. I enjoy having Vietnamese, Thai, Mexican, Ethiopian, etc. cuisine and goods available in my city.
Italians used to be the “immigration problem”. And then it was the Irish. It’s always been going on, it’s just now easier to see the difference from a distance. Do the Lou Dobbs of this world talk about how destructive the Italians are to our way of life? No, although I’m sure Lou would have 100 years ago.
Actually, the Republics have a subtle strategy to deal with immigration: crash the value of the dollar. Under the steady leadership of the MBA Preznit, it’s beginning to work.
The value of the dollar is less than the Canadian dollar so Canadians will now want to stay in Canada in order to earn more. The Republics are pushing really hard to get the dollar down under the peso so that Mexicans will stay in Mexico. Immigration problem magically solved.
Harvard must be so proud of their MBA graduate Bush.
OT the Cushing spot price for oil closed today at $96.37. I have begun to see “explanations” of the high crude prices. What gets me is how off base they are, how many try to explain an irrational market as if it were rational. Fundamentals and known triggers do not explain what is going on here. You have had a change in the base price in oil to the $70-75 range. Anything beyond this is pure speculation.
While our candidates are addressing the real issues voters care about better than the GOP our guys need to start taking more stands on issues.
Dennis and Dodd are leading the way I expect the frontrunners to join up or fade away.
Hugh @ 33
I gather the recent run-up of auto fuel is now indicating the run-up in crude?
I remember a few years ago when the chattermouths said that $80.00 would ruin the economy.
How high can it go?
-GSD
Boxturtle @ 22
They’re not lawbreakers. They don’t go to prison, they get sent home. They’re administrative rulebreakers. Immigration is a bureaucratic institution, not a justice system one (yet). Coming into this country without documentation is roughly equivalent to a parking violation. There are repercussions if you’re caught, but you don’t go to jail for a crime. The only lawbreakers are the human smugglers and the corporate execs who hire undocumented workers.
Tucker is trying to tie Hilary’s stand on immigrats getting a drivers liscense to her lower poll numbers after the debate.
Hugh @ 33
Meanwhile, Exxon is still reporting record-shattering profits… Astronomical amounts even…
Badwater @ 32
I drove through some outlet malls this week–in MI.
A very large chunk of cars in the lots were from Ontario. Mr. emptywheel didn’t get it at first, until I pointed out that they were all rich.
Ya know. A driver’s license doesn’t denote citizenship - don’t the dipshits know that? Fer christ sakes, when stationed in Germany, I had a German driver’s license. I wasn’t a German citizen nor did I qualify for anything simply because I had a driver’s license.
And fucking Rahm taking credit for shit that he had little to do with……
You’ll never hear Rahm and Lou say that a lot of the undocumented are from Europe and Asia, and came in as tourists or students, but never went home. (Can we say they found a better place?)
It doesn’t fit the story they’re trying to tell.
OT, but well worth the read - Seymour Hersh’s latest on Pakistan and its WMD - Watching the Warheads
Any opinions on why Edwards said “no” to the Spitzer idea?..seems odd
(snip)
And for anybody in this country who is making an effort and on the path to obtaining American citizenship, yes, they should have a driver’s license. If they’re not making any effort to become an American citizen, and we have a system for doing that, my own personal view is, no, I would not give them a driver’s license.”
(snip)
I, too, am very glad that Virginians have shown the good sense to reject this nonsense. One of my favorite random bits of election coverage was a reporter at Republican headquarters asking Delegate Bob Marshall (R-Evil) about how immigration hadn’t produced turnout like they’d hoped it would.
Marshall blathered quite impressively that no, it had worked, but it had displaced other issues that motivated voters.
Translated into English, that means that it brought out the same people who would have been motivated by their other issues. In other words, it didn’t get them any additional voters.
The explanation sure sounded smooth, though; the man is nothing if not a skilled liar. *g*
Low chrch fuckery!
Yup.
pach - the post is dead on! i do get your point….those voters will always go to pols who are against the “brown hordes” yearning to breathe free…..but this america is no longer that place imo
Bustednuckles @ 7
I shoulda figgured that a zed on Firedoglake would get me hassled by homeland security. :-)
Boxturtle(Lot’s of ID, but none of it says Boxturtle)
If we would stop ripping off so called developing and third world countries and starting wars, perhaps we wouldn’t have an ‘immigration problem’.
emptywheel @ 39
Hah, The Canucks are bailing us out! I see you’re back from Beer, err… Bear-Hunting! ;-)
Mad Dogs @ 18
As long as lots of those mutts are following him home, the Dog Food advertisers will still love him.
Bob in HI
I take it all of the macho Republican wingers are now toasting the arrival of Sarkozy and are dining on wine and cheese.
France is GOOD now!
Lemming express, all aboard.
-GSD
GSD @ 35
At the moment, gasoline is following oil. I think that there is a speculative fever that would dearly love to break the $100 mark. The cost of oil is already having an effect on the economy. The current bid ups are essentially a bubble which at some point should burst. If, for example, the economy is slowed, demand should soften and it will become difficult to sustain the prices for crude at their current speculative levels.
puppethead @ 35
Most folks won’t understand the difference. Heck, until your post I never thought there was a difference myself.
Boxturtle(Thanks Puppethead)
Is Andrew Cumo against Spitzer on the liscense issue? Given his Name he might run for national office someday. Pissing off Hispanics is not bright for a Democratic candidate. Maybe he’s thinking of jumping ship?
But NAFTA, CAFTA, the WTO and the third way will solve our immigration problems. We’re just too darned stupid to understand that.
bobschacht @ 51
As long as he feeds them the melamite tainted Dog Food…! ;-)
Will Lou be drunk tonight
emptywheel @ 38
Seeing the very same thing here in Minnesota at the Mall of America.
Those dang rich Canucks. I may have to sneak across the border and go to work there.
Boxturtle @ 22
Just wondering–
Were the Mayflower Pilgrims illegal immigrants?
I wonder what Lou Dobbs would say?
Bob in HI
Oklahoma kiddo @ 56
When Bush and the corporatists have outsourced the last job in the country, even the undocumented will probably leave.
bobschacht @ 60
Their kin certainly played havoc with the Aina, Bob! 8-(
bobschacht @ 60
I believe they received retroactive immunity.
Mad Dogs @ 41
We can’t even keep track of OUR warheads. How can we possibly expect to keep track of, let alone disarm, dismantle, destroy or steal theirs? A very good article, nonetheless.
The GOP is trying and succseding at scaring the Rahm’s and Penn’s of the Democratic Center away from a fast growing voter group that should be ours. By encourging this antiimmigrant movement in the media.
The GOP has given up on Hispanics but since they can’t get us they want to make sure the Democrats don’t get Hispanic votes either.
Predictably the Democrats are falling for it.
The GOP wants Hispanics disillusioned with the Democratic party a low Hispanic voter turnout might save some western GOP seats.
OT: Although the 2007 Weblog awards seem like a scam to legitimize c-list righty blogs, the science blogs section needs some attention:
Best ‘Science’ Blog
Boston1775 @ 19
Amen. The rest of us will be voting based on hope for a better future, and knowledge that we can all pull together and make it happen. (Please let this be so too!)
`Ooh, more schadenfreude–
New York Prosecutors to seek Charges against Kerik
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11.....ik.html?hp
What will Rudy say?
Oklahoma kiddo @ 55
Instead of NAFTA we need to do what the Europeans did to the former Comunist block countries insist that they work to bring their budgets, laws including enviromental and labour laws closer to par with the European Union.
Then they got the open border , euroe currency carrot. East Germany is now a major if not the world leader in solar panel production. Mexico on the other hand tends to have lower tech less wage jobs still.
Plus Bush wants to send Mexico money to stop drugs. Too bad there are not many ways in Mexico to make a good living outside of drugs or working in America.
tejanarusa @ 67
“Kerik? hmmm. that name vaguely rings a bell….”
Oops, make that:
“U>S> Prosecutors to Seek Charges Against Kerik.”
My bad; skimmed it too fast.
tejanarusa @ 67
More on Edwards and the “Spitzer Plan”
(snip)
Immigration policy experts on both sides of the debate say they’re puzzled by Edwards’ stance, which appears to hinge on blurring the distinction between state and federal powers.
“He supports licenses as part of a path to citizenship. He doesn’t support the Spitzer plan because it doesn’t include a path to citizenship,” said Edwards’ deputy campaign manager Jonathan Prince in an e-mail referring to the New York governor’s plan that prompted the question that flummoxed Clinton.
“That’s not a rational position — Eliot Spitzer couldn’t ever offer somebody a path to citizenship,” said Margie McHugh, the Co-Director of the National Center on Immigrant Integration Policy at the Migration Policy Institute, which favors immigration reform.
“I don’t know if they think you’re stupid or what they think,” said Frank Sharry, the executive director of the National Immigrantion Forum, another broadly pro-immigration policy shop.
(snip)
Politico
Ed*ard Teller @ 64
It is so infuriating that we took our eyes off the target, repeatedly…
…As Osama bin Laden continued to elude the American forces, there was talk in the Pentagon and the White House last week of lowered expectations. A high-level former intelligence official talked about how the air attacks had “contained” bin Laden and the Taliban leadership, rather than about the prospect of actually capturing him. Bin Laden, one senior general told me, may not be dead, “but he’s hiding in a cave at six thousand feet freezing his ass off.” The former State Department official acknowledged that the air attacks thus far had not been a success and added, “What worries me is if, a month from now, bin Laden gets on Al-Jazeera and thumbs his nose at us. It’d be a huge loss of prestige for the United States.”
puppethead @ 36
One thing that makes the operation terribly unfair is the outrageous charges ($$$) imposed on people who want to do something as simple as apply for a visa. The U.S. embassies in Mexico are operating like a monopolistic money-grubbing operation. Maybe I ought to go dig up some figures on the actual fees, but I remember being shocked recently by a woman’s son wanting to come visit her from Mexico being charged more than several hundreds of $$ just to file an application, then being told, no, not right now, come back in a while and do it all again. Anybody know some details?
Lou Dobbs was being interviewed today and said that Bush and John Kerry were “not a dime difference” because they went to Yale undergrad and because they both come from privileged families. Seemed a little nutty to me.
Things Come Undone @ 68
Your ideas are good. ;0)
I’ll say this again, and keep repeating it:
Immigration debate should be divided into two separate issues:
one, protecting our borders from bad guys coming in and two, making a legitimate was for foreign workers to temporarily enter and leave.
Hugh @ 60
Some accuse HRC of being in the pocket of corporatists.
Sandman @ 75
I heard Mort Zuckerman say on Tucker Carlson’s show Bush is a Democrat. I think this the current gooper talking point. Bush is really not a republican but a liberal.
CTuttle@73
I heard somebody on the radio today say that if Muscharif catches Osama, he’ll be out of millions from the US that prop us his government. Out of a job, essentially.
OT..SJC votes on FISA tomorrow..Mark Klein in DC trying to tell people what is going on..
“The president has not presented this truthfully,” said Klein, a 62-year old retiree. “He said it was about a few people making calls to the Mideast. But I know this physical equipment. It copies everything. There’s no selection of anything, at all — the splitter copies entire data streams from the internet, phone conversations, e-mail, web-browsing. Everything.”
What Klein unearthed — you can read it here — points to a nearly unbounded surveillance program. Its very location in San Francisco suggests that the program was “massively domestic” in its focus, he said. “If they really meant what they say about only wanting international stuff, you wouldn’t want it in San Francisco or Atlanta. You’d want to be closer to the border where the lines come in from the ocean so you pick up international calls. You only do it in San Francisco if you want domestic stuff. The location of this stuff contradicts their story.”
Immigration controls Lou Dobbs.
My eyes just blurred from way too much internal pressure, must,not,let, head,explode.
ccmask @ 82
ole Lou is suffering from non-Dobbs on limp foam-a
Oh goody. Another investigation that will go nowhere.
The Education Department’s inspector general says he will review whether federal money is inappropriately being spent on programs by a company founded by Neil Bush, the president’s brother.
CTuttle @ 74
Lowering expectations has been the main Bush policy position on just about everything for the past year.
I am expecting almost any week now that Bush will defend himself (re: torture, or FISA, or the scandal of the week) by saying, “I am not a crook.”
Besides, Bush needs Bin Laden to be alive, well, and on the lam. It keeps the so-called “war on terror” alive and credible. If he was caught, or killed, people would start concluding that the war was over.
Bob in HI
I am seeing the wisdom of Howies methods, Rahm Emmanuel needs to be nuetered.
punaise @ 85
*groan*
itwasntme @ 81
He might be anyways…!
katherine Graham Cracker @ 79
Oh.My.Gawd.
Will people fall for that? Oh, never mind…
Oklahoma kiddo @ 78
Some! (snark) just the Corporations and the MSM think Hilary is a Lefty!
The entire Left thinks she is a center candidate. You can tell if a person gets their news from TV or if they are not paying attention to politics if they think Hilary is not a corporate tool.
Which just means that we have to work harder to educate voters about her record because the MSM sure won’t!
CTuttle @ 88
Oh, punasie. (shakes head) I had to read that out loud.
Things Come Undone @ 92
A DLC’er, through and through…
Bustednuckles @ 87
I thought he was, I thought he did it himself? Just like he did his own lobototmy.
I find this upsetting.
AP - Veterans make up one in four homeless people in the United States, though they are only 11 percent of the general adult population, according to a report to be released Thursday.
My husband just got his citizenship yesterday. Add one more pissed off latino, who now has the vote.