Iowa Republican Steve King ramps up the anti-immigrant bigotry

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Yes, some of the less extreme Republicans understand that their party has to make a concerted effort to reach out to Hispanics in order to remain electorally viable, and some of the less bigoted ones also realize that their party needs to be sincere in rebranding itself as more inclusive, even that it's good in and of itself to embrace basic decency and respect for others...

But then there are the likes of Rep. Steve King of Iowa, who obviously speak for many more in the Republican Party when they ramp up the ideological extremism and blend it with unabashed bigotry, including contributing to an immigration debate that is already making Republicans look like a bunch of retrograde fools by targeting the children of undocumented immigrants:

Iowa conservative Republican Congressman Steve King said in an interview with Newsmax that for every valedictorian DREAMer who has been brought to this country by his or her family, "...there's another 100 out there who, they weigh 130 pounds and they've got calves the size of cantaloupes because they're hauling 75 pounds of marijuana across the desert. Those people would be legalized with the same act."

Seriously -- you can watch the clip below. This guy -- a prominent Republican congressman with solid standing in the party -- says that for every one success story there are a hundred drug runners. I can't speak for Hispanics, but this doesn't appear to be a compelling appeal for their support, and one could hardly fault them for thinking that the Republican Party doesn't much care for them, you know, what with the way it vilifies them and all.

Behind the Ad: The DCCC uses Spanish-language ads to attack Republicans

By Richard K. Barry

Who: The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC)

Where: Colorado, Texas, Minnesota, Nevada, California, New Mexico, Virginia

What's going on: Last week the House voted against the Dream Act, a bill that would provide conditional permanent residency to certain classes of immigrants.  Now the DCCC is targeting Republicans who were on the wrong side of the legislation with a new Spanish-language radio ad. Those getting the unwanted attention are: Reps. Mike Coffman (Colo.), Blake Farenthold (Texas), John Kline (Minn.), Joe Heck (Nev.), Buck McKeon (Calif.), Gary Miller (Calif.), Erik Paulsen (Minn.), Steve Pearce (N.M.), and Frank Wolf (Va.).

I never paid enough attention in the 3 or 4 years of Spanish I took in school to know what is being said, but it probably has something to do with the fact that Republicans will never get much above 25% of the Hispanic vote until they wake up and smell the café.

One funny thing is the ad is running in some districts that don't have much of a Hispanic vote, so it is clearly meant for a wider audience. 

 

(Cross-posted at Phantom Public.)

Marco Rubio and Republican desperation on immigration reform

By Michael J.W. Stickings

On Friday, GOP wunderkind Marco Rubio decided to provide us with some hilarity with respect to his signature issue, immigration reform:

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), a congressional leader on immigration reform and long considered a likely 2016 presidential candidate, criticized President Obama for "poison[ing] the well" on the reform effort in a wide-ranging interview with The Wall Street Journal.

Speaking of Obama's policy shift, launched just months before Election Day, to stop the deportation of young illegal immigrants and start issuing them work permits, Rubio told the newspaper that Obama "may have even set back the cause a bit."

"He's poisoned the well for people willing to take on this issue," he said.

Rubio also expressed skepticism that the president would pursue the issue in his second term, despite the president's frequent proclamations that immigration reform is one of his top priorities for the next four years...

[He] suggested Obama's inaction may be purely political; that the president, coming out of an election in which Hispanic voters overwhelmingly broke for Obama, will see it as politically expedient to delay work on immigration reform to retain it as a winning issue for Democrats.

What a steaming pile of horseshit. Here are some comments:

1) How exactly did the president "poison the well"? By rejecting the anti-immigrant bigotry of the Republican Party? By calling for sensible (as opposed to punitive/vindictive) reform that includes enforcing existing laws while also showing an understanding of the complexity of the issue, with compassion towards the many undocumented immigrants in the U.S. today? By first promoting the DREAM Act, widely popular among Latinos, and then, when Republicans prevented its passing, by issuing an executive order implemening its key component -- halting the deportation of undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. as children, have lived in the U.S. for at least five years, and are in school, are high school graduates, or are military veterans, and allowing these people to remain in the country legally?

What, he poisoned the well by showing such conviction, fortitude, and leadership, establishing the groundwork for further reform? 

Read more »

Ideology is the biggest Republican problem

By Frank Moraes

Kevin Drum has written another of those "Republicans need to be nice" articles over at Mother Jones, "The GOP's Immigration Problem Goes Way Beyond Immigration." He specifically discusses the small amount of movement from conservatives on immigration. Drum doesn't mention this, but it is amusing that conservatives are treating Latinos just like they claim liberals treat women. Throughout the campaign, they said that women cared about economics, not birth control. Well, now the conservatives are claiming that the only reason Latinos hate them is because they didn't support the Dream Act.

The truth is that the conservatives were always kind of right. Most of what people care about are economic issues. And birth control is an economic issue. Immigration is an economic issue. Being on the right side of these issues is not sufficient to get these groups' votes, but it is necessary. We need to applaud conservatives who make this small step forward, but I wonder if it will lead anywhere. I fear that they will instead reach a place where they just can't believe these Latinos want even more.

When I talk about what Latinos want, I'm talking about greater income equality. Drum, in his infinite villager wisdom, is talking about messaging. He quotes conservative fucktard Bernie "The liberal media are destroying America!" Goldberg, "There is a strain of bigotry -- and that's the word I want to use -- running through conservative America... That has to leave the conservative movement... I am sick of it." Drum follows up on this is a most poetic way: 

Like it or not, conservatives are going to need a much more thorough housecleaning if they want to survive in an increasingly diverse future. No more gratuitous ethnic mockery. No more pretense that reverse racism is the real racism. No more suggestions that minorities just want a handout. No more screeching about the incipient threat of Sharia law. No more saturation coverage of the pathetic New Black Panthers. No more complaining that blacks get to use the N word but whites don't...

And so on. It's good writing, but it misses the point. Conservatives don't talk this way for nothing. Goldberg is right: there are a lot of people who vote Republican because they are bigots. I'm not suggesting that there aren't racists in the Democratic Party. But they vote Democratic despite their bigotry, not because of it. And let's get real: given the Republican Party ran a "whites only" campaign this year, they aren't likely to abandon the racists in their party who are some of their strongest supporters. The party may tone done the rhetoric, but that's about all.

Of course, all of this talk of racism and the war on women misses the point. Even if the Republicans perfected all their pretty talk and convinced enough people to vote them into power, it would not last. Republican ideology is against everyone but the very rich. The democracy will only allow so much income inequality. After a certain point, the inequality is reduced or the democracy is destroyed. This is why the Republicans have been trying to suppress the vote. They know that in order to continue to be a dominant party they must either water down their ideology or our democracy. I don't see them working on their ideology any time soon.

(Cross-posted at Frankly Curious.)

MItt Romney on self-deportation -- again

By Richard K. Barry

Ah, let us relive some of the more entertaining moments from Tuesday's debate.

How about this one, in which Mitt Romney explains his policy of self-deportation? Last time I looked, Mitt was polling in the 20s among Latino voters. I have to wonder if he is trying to bring that down to zero. He might have a shot.

Mitt wants undocumented immigrants to know he will make their lives so miserable they will be begging to be deported.

Or, to quote Steve Benen, as I like to do:

There's no great mystery as to why Mitt Romney is struggling so badly with Latinos: Romney has gone out of his way to deliberately antagonize the entire community -- endorsing "self-deportation," vowing to veto the DREAM Act, palling around with Kris Kobach, using "illegal" as a noun, and describing Arizona's SB 1070 as a "model" for the nation.

Tell us all about it, Mitt:


(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)

Romney won't deport people... if they've paid to stay

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Mitt Romney generally avoids having to take a firm position on anything, preferring to campaign on a platform of anti-Obama lies and smears, but after a lot of hapless dithering (refusing to take a position because, whatever his real views, assuming he actually has any, he didn't want to upset pretty much the entirety of his anti-immigrant party) he finally took a position yesterday on President Obama's decision to stop deporting undocumented immigrants who came to America as children with their parents:

Young illegal immigrants who receive temporary work permits to stay in the United States under an executive order issued by President Barack Obama would not be deported under a Mitt Romney administration, the GOP presidential hopeful told The Denver Post Monday.

"The people who have received the special visa that the president has put in place, which is a two-year visa, should expect that the visa would continue to be valid. I'm not going to take something that they've purchased," Romney said. "Before those visas have expired we will have the full immigration reform plan that I've proposed."

And why shouldn't they be deported?

Is it that these people are, for all intents and purposes, American?

Is it that there's actually a speck of compassion and understanding lodged deep in whatever is left of his soul?

No, it's that they paid money to stay (and that he's making another last-ditch attempt to win a bit more of the Latino vote, which of course is heavily pro-Obama, for many and obvious reasons).

As New York's Dan Amira writes, noting that it took Romney a whole 108 days to state his position:

Romney's explanation here seems carefully calculated to soften the blow with his GOP base: He'd keep the policy in place, but not because of sympathy for people who were brought here illegally as kids by their parents, grew up as Americans, and now know the United States as home, but because they had to pay a $465 fee with their application for "deferred action," and reneging on that would just not be right.

What a wonderful guy.

Supreme Court upholds (most of) Obamacare: The day the conservative dream (sort of) died

By Michael J.W. Stickings

So wait. What happened today? Sorry, I was too busy thinking about the universal health care system we have here in Canada.

Something about a court case?

**********

I'm kidding, of course.

Like many others, like many of you perhaps, I went through a sudden roller coaster of emotions when I heard the news.

Actually, when I read the headline at CNN.com, about the individual mandate being struck down, and then quickly learned, via the indispensable SCOTUSblog that, oops, CNN had gotten it wrong (as had Fox News, by the way), that in fact the Court had upheld (almost the entirety of) the Affordable Care Act, including the controversial (though only because Republicans have made a partisan issue of it, not because it really is) mandate, which the Court, with Chief Justice Roberts joining the liberals (or, more accurately, those who aren't right-wing ideologues engaged in a campaign of relentless judicial activism to undo American democracy) to form a 5-4 majority, held to be a tax and so constitutional.

Great news, I thought, particularly for the tens of millions of Americans who would have been denied coverage if the law had been struck down, but also for President Obama, for whom this has become a signature achievement of his presidency.

Romney, who of course signed into law the forerunner of Obamacare in Massachusetts and who was a strong advocate of progressive (if also market-oriented) health-care reform before he decided to run for president and so needed to suck up to the increasingly extremist Republican base, gloated last night that "they're not sleeping real well at the White House," but this was a significant loss for him, one that he was at pains to address today. He insists he'll work to repeal (and replace) Obamacare, but what he offered was not just red meat for the right but blatant dishonesty about what Obamacare actually does. (As Ryan Lizza writes, repeal would be highly unlikely under President Romney. It's all just Republican fantasy.)

Indeed, it's been a bad couple of weeks for him, what with the Court striking down most of Arizona's draconian anti-immigrant bill but leaving perhaps the worst provision in, the right of law enforcement to demand proof of citizenship/residency, which was just enough to hand the president a win as well as a significant campaign issue, as he can continue to campaign against Republican extremism on the immigration issue generally while backing Romney into a corner.

And of course it didn't help Romney that Obama also implemented, by executive action, the DREAM Act, a popular measure that will prevent the deportation of the children of undocumented immigrants. It was enough to get supportive words from the right-wing likes of Marco Rubio and Bill Kristol, and with it the president only solidified, if not expanded, his hold on the Latino vote, a key demographic that could swing the election.

On this issue, as on so many others, what we're seeing is a stark contrast between Obama's principled leadership and Romney's opportunistic dithering, and it's one that will no doubt be highlighted when the campaign gets underway in earnest later this summer and into the fall.

**********

As for today's ruling, as Richard wrote, a win is a win, and in a way it's as simple as that. For now at least, the president can claim victory -- and that justice was truly done.

And it's going to be tough for Romney to move forward, as the ruling reinforces the deep divide in the Republican Party between the absolutist right-wing ideologues to whom Romney has been sucking up and the somewhat less absolutist but still deeply ideological pragmatists who are running his campaign. While the ideologues are fired up over issues like immigration and health care, as on other social issues like abortion and, as we saw during the primaries, birth control, these are losing issues for Romney. He can't win independents and other swing voters in key states by playing so hard to the right. So what I suspect is that the more sensible people around him, including perhaps Karl Rove, are advising him to try to move away from these issues and back to the economy, where his only hope for victory can be found.

Which is to say, while there will continue to be much huffing and puffing from the right, it wouldn't at all surprise me if Romney himself didn't say much more about either immigration or health care and if his campaign went back to his meat and potatoes. If nothing else, what these past couple of weeks tell us is that Romney desperately needs to change the narrative, which has swung against him hard for the first time since he locked up the nomination.

Obama needs to do what he can to counter that effort, not least by talking about what the law, what his law, does. If he can finally sell it to the American people -- and we know its various elements are popular -- he'll benefit in November.

**********

Anyway, there's obviously been a lot of reaction, even a lot of intelligent commentary, in response to today's ruling, and I don't intend to add to the specifics here.

Generally, right now, I'm trying to focus on the positive, on the win. But it's not all good. Not at all.

Conservatives turned quickly on Roberts, now persona non grata among the partisan ideologues, but actually the majority ruling is troubling. For two reasons, one legal and one political:

Legal: As Jon Chait writes:

[F]ive justices ruled that the Affordable Care Act cannot be upheld under the Commerce Clause. This is a bizarre and implausibly narrow reading — if Congress cannot regulate the health-care market, then it cannot really regulate interstate commerce. By endorsing this precedent, Roberts opens the door for future courts to revive the Constitution in Exile.

But Roberts will do it by a process of slow constriction, carefully building case upon case to produce a result that over time will, if he prevails, rewrite the shape of American law. What he is not willing to do is to impose his vision in one sudden and transparently partisan attack. Roberts is playing a long game.

Which is to say, this ruling may actually turn out to be a significant defeat for the federal government, and for federal authority generally, long a target of the right, not least with respect to federal efforts to impose progressive reforms on anti-progressive states. (For more on the Commerce Clause, and its possible future, see Jon Cohn, who finds that perhaps, just perhaps, what Roberts did won't actually cause much constitutional harm. Greg Sargent makes the same point, arguing that it's really not a big deal.)

Political: In calling the mandate a tax, the Court is saying that Democrats voted for a tax. And that's rarely ever good politically, particularly during the crazy days of election season.

As Brian Beutler writes:

The Supreme Court's narrow decision to uphold the Affordable Care Act's insurance mandate as a valid exercise of Congress' taxing power has reignited a spin war over whether Democrats broke their pledge not to raise middle-class taxes, and whether they misled the public by insisting the mandate was not a tax during the contentious health care reform debate.

*****

Intent matters. And the Court essentially held that the law's authors created something that functions like a tax, but serves the purposes of a penalty.

But the GOP is weighing various repeal bills, including legislation to strip the mandate. The fact that the Court upheld the mandate on taxing power grounds will make it harder than it already would have been for vulnerable Democrats to vote against that measure.

The truth is actually quite nuanced (see Lyle Denniston for more), but when does that ever matter on the campaign trail? Look for Republicans to accuse Obama and the Democrats of imposing a new tax on the American people -- Dear Leader Rush is already leading the way -- and thereby try to score political points. It's a silly argument, but Democrats could very well find themselves on the defensive.

My quick response to the legal point is that I'm worried about what Roberts might be up to over the long haul while nonetheless celebrating the ruling, while my quick response to the political point is that it's manageable if Democrats leave the mandate aside (and avoid playing defence) and instead focus on all the good things the law does (and so go on offence, forcing Republicans to defend the indefensible status quo ante).

But while these are indeed serious matters that deserve our attention, let's pull this back to what really matters today: The Supreme Court, despite a conservative majority, voted to uphold not just one of the president's signature achievements but one of the most significant progressive reforms in U.S. history.

Whatever concerns we may have, that is reason enough to celebrate a huge victory over the forces of darkness.

Some good news but mostly bad news for Romney on immigration and the Latino vote

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Given his recent dithering, and more so given his sucking up to the jingoistic, xenophobic right during the primaries, it's good news for Romney that immigration isn't the #1 issue. (A new Gallup poll places it well back of health care and various economic/fiscal issues, at least among registered voters. Latinos generally have it tied for first alongside health care and unemployment.)

The bad news for Romney is that President Obama commands a huge lead among Latinos. The same poll has him up 66 to 25 among registered Latino voters.

In other words, Obama is way up among Latinos even though immigration, an issue on which he has a huge advantage over Romney, isn't a dominant priority for them.

On the one hand, Romney could take comfort here. It likely won't get worse for him on immigration, and so he can try to work to narrow the gap with this key demographic by continuing to blame Obama for not doing enough to fix the economy and by stressing what he claims are his economic bona fides, specifically his business record.

On the other hand, it very well could get worse for him on immigration, not least given the Supreme Court's decision to uphold perhaps the most egregious part of Arizona's draconian anti-immigrant law even as it struck down most of the law on jurisdictional grounds. In response, Romney may not have gone the extremist right-wing Scalia route and railed against illegal immigration (proving that he is fully ideologue and partisan, not dispassionate jurist), but his refusal to take a stand on the ruling, similar to his refusal to take a stand on Obama's executive action implementing the DREAM Act, was telling. He wants nothing to do with immigration as an issue because he knows it's a losing issue for him, but he likely won't be able to avoid it. At some point, he'll have to side with the right-wing extremists who dominate the issue in the Republican Party or take a more sensible approach and alienate Republican voters.

Add to this the fact that most people aren't paying attention (and won't until the campaign gets underway in earnest later in the summer) and Romney's "support" among Latinos could very well go down once Romney's dithering/pandering is contrasted to the president's strong, sensible positioning (and clear personal views), including on yesterday's ruling.

But even if the numbers stay roughly the same, that would mean Obama winning this demographic by an overwhelming margin, putting even more pressure on Romney to pick up even more support among white males, his core demographic. He's well ahead among white males, to be sure, but the question is whether he'll win by enough to offset his losses elsewhere.

Perhaps it won't matter in 2012. Perhaps the Latino vote won't be the difference one way or the other. For Republicans, though, the fact that this fast-growing demographic is overwhelmingly Democratic spells electoral disaster in elections to come. And, Romney's dithering aside, it won't get any better for them if they continue to insist on taking extremist positions on immigration, as well as on other issues that evidently matter a great deal to Latinos, as to so many Americans, like health care.

Politics continues to be political

By Richard K. Barry 

A new poll released on June 17, 2012 by Latino Decisions and America's Voice finds that Latino registered voters really like President Obama's recent announcement that he will "halt deportations and provide temporary work permits to some young undocumented immigrants":

Prior to June 15, 2012, many immigration reform advocates had stated that the record high levels of deportations of immigrants under the Obama administration was causing some Latinos to grow weary about the Obama re-election campaign. In a Latino Decisions/Univision News poll in early 2012, 53% of Latino voters said they were less enthusiastic about Obama in 2012 than they had been in 2009, while just 30% were more excited about the President. Overall, when asked what they thought about Obama’s deportation of 1.2 million immigrants, 41% of Latino voters said they were less enthusiastic about Obama, compared to 22% who were more enthusiastic, a net enthusiasm deficit of -19 points. The announcement on June 15 appears to have clearly erased Obama’s enthusiasm deficit among Latinos.

Repeat that last line: The announcement "appears to have clearly erased Obama's enthusiasm deficit among Latinos."

On Face the Nation over the weekend, Mitt Romney told Bob Schieffer that as for Obama's announcement, politics was "certainly a big part of the equation."

Isn't it interesting that Mitt Romney, a man who has changed so many of the political positions he once held to pander to a very conservative Republican Party, would sneer at anyone else for "being political."

That's politics. And, you're right, Mitt. Obama's announcement was political. Bazinga!

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)

Obama's leadership, Romney's dithering: The policy and politics of the DREAM Act

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Maybe he's just waiting to see which way the wind blows, or maybe he's just not sure how to respond to President Obama's decisive move on immigration, one that effectively backs him into a corner from which there is no easy escape, but, whatever the case, Romney is dithering in a way that makes it look like he knows he's screwed:

Mitt Romney refuses to say whether he'd repeal the Obama administration's decision to stop deporting certain undocumented immigrants.

In an interview with Bob Schieffer aired Sunday on CBS's "Face the Nation," the presumptive Republican presidential nominee five different times declined to answer whether he would conduct the same policy President Barack Obama on Friday announced his Department of Homeland Security will now pursue.

Instead of answering the question posed, Romney called for a permanent solution.

"With regards to these kids who were brought in by their parents through no fault of their own, there needs to be a long-term solution so they know what their status is," Romney said. "This is something Congress has been working on, and I thought we were about to see some proposals brought forward by Sen. Marco Rubio and by Democrat senators, but the president jumped in and said I'm going to take this action, he called it a stop-gap measure. I don't know why he feels stop-gap measures are the right way to go."

After Schieffer asked, directly, four additional times if Romney would repeal the policy without receiving an answer, Romney called the move political.

"I think the timing is pretty clear, if he really wanted to make a solution that dealt with these kids or with illegal immigration in America, than this is something he would have taken up in his first three and a half years, not in his last few months," he said.

No... political? A politician doing something political? Huh.

This is what politicians often say when they really have nothing of substance to say, when they want to criticize something but can't actually find anything of substance to criticize -- that is to say, they go after the process and scream politics, as if that somehow means the something in question loses all its validity simply by virtue of being... political.

Is President Obama's executive action to allow undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. as children, have lived in the U.S. for at least five years, and are in school, are high school graduates, or are military veterans to stay in the country legally, halting deportations of such people, political? Yes, but only in the sense that everything the president does, anything any politician does, is political. And, by the way, it's also the right thing to do.

Should President Obama have done this earlier? Maybe, but it's not like he hasn't been doing anything else the past three and a half years, and, what's more, this isn't new. Democrats introduced the DREAM Act, which is essentially that this is, was first introduced in the House in April 2001. After various attempts to get it moving, it was introduced in the Senate in October 2007, with two Republican co-sponsors (two Republicans no longer there, Chuck Hagel and Richard Lugar), and then re-introduced in March 2009, again with Republican co-sponsors (this time Lugar and Mel Martinez). It was passed in the House in December 2010 but failed in the Senate, where Republicans predictably filibustered it. And with Republicans taking the House, wielding the filibuster in the Senate, and continuing to pursue obstructionist opposition to anything and everything President Obama and the Democrats wanted to do, working to deny the president success at every turn, what else was he to do? The only alternative to Republican-instigated legislative paralysis was executive action.

And while it may seem political to do it now, it was always going to be political -- because it's political -- and Republicans were always going to criticize it on either political or ideological terms, or both. The problem for Romney is that he can't credibly criticize it on ideological terms because he's not that sort of right-wing ideologue. He may have played one back during the primaries, when he was trying to fend off Gingrich and Santorum, but it wasn't exactly his finest performance, at least in the sense that it wasn't terribly believable. He was clearly pandering for right-wing votes. He needs those votes still, but coming out against the DREAM Act wouldn't exactly win him support among independents or business-minded conservatives (who have always been soft on undocumented immigration) -- and certainly not among Latinos. (The CBO has also concluded that the DREAM Act would be good for the budget as well.)

Indeed, as our friend Mustang Bobby wrote the other day:

So, the president is basically implementing the DREAM Act that Republicans supported once upon a time... when it wasn't sponsored by a black Democrat in the White House. That just so happens to be a big deal for a crucial voting bloc. This provokes the nutsery into acting like a bunch of sugared-up ten-year-olds throwing a tantrum, making them look like the rude and whiny brats that they are.

Win-win for Obama. 

Which is to say, it's good policy and good politics. And Romney knows that. Which is precisely why he's dithering.

**********

Even Republican wunderkind (and possible Romney running mate) Marco Rubio, the son of (Cuban) immigrants, thinks it's a good idea, saying it's "welcome news." Sure, he criticized it for being just a short-term solution, as Romney did, but that's hardly much of a criticism at this point.

And just to drive the point home, even Krazy Bill Kristol, who rarely passes up an opportunity to go after the president and concede anything to the Democrats (such a shameless partisan hack is he), is on board: "I think it's a sensible policy... I think it's the right thing to do, actually."

Again, is it any wonder Romney is dithering so embarrassingly (and so tellingly), showing anything but conviction, fortitude, and leadership when faced with a challenging issue on which President Obama has shown such strength and determination?

**********

For my views on the DREAM Act itself, see my post from December 2010. It included this:

It isn't just that the legislation is broadly popular, or that the military supports it, it's that Latinos (or Hispanics, as the two terms are generally used interchangeably), perhaps the key emerging demographic in the U.S., see it as essential. As [National Council of La Raza president Janet] Murguía notes, this vote is "defining," meaning that it will be remembered. And what will be remembered is that Democrats supported the legislation and Republicans opposed it.

Of course, we already knew where the two parties stood on the issue of undocumented immigration, but this bill (and especially the divided vote in the House and a likely non-vote in the Senate as a result of Republican opposition) essentially crystallizes the issue in clear and media-friendly terms:

Democrats want to give undocumented immigrants a path to citizenship, Republicans do not.

Democrats want to give the children of undocumented immigrants a chance to make it in America, Republicans do not.

Consider the alternatives: While Democrats want to act humanely and to recognize the valuable contributions undocumented immigrants have made and will make, as Americans, to American society, Republicans prefer persecution, imprisonment, and deportation.

While Democrats want America to be a free and open society that welcomes newcomers and understands why so many people risk their lives to make it to America, Republicans want America to be a fortress largely closed off to the outside world except for the free trade of goods to allow the rich to get richer and internally to be a police state that targets the Other, building walls to keep people out and apart, protecting privilege as it effectively disenfranchises the vast majority of Americans, documented or otherwise.

Yes, the two sides are clearly defined and, with this vote, and with the DREAM Act generally, the choice is clear.

Even if the Democrats ultimately lose in Congress, they stand to gain immensely at the polls down the road -- and that, one hopes, will finally lead not just to a path to citizenship for young people but for the acceptance, inclusion, and full participation in American society of those who came to America to make a better life for themselves and their families, and who only want to share in the hopes and dreams of what is supposedly a great nation.

The choice remains clear today. And Republicans are struggling with being, once again, on the wrong side of history.

Eva Longoria slams Romney over DREAM Act

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Via twitter: 

85% of Latino Voters support the #DREAM Act, 100% of @MittRomney, doesn’t!

-- Eva Longoria (@evalongoria)

Yes, that Eva Longoria. The extraordinarily beautiful Eva Longoria.

Very well put. (More here.)

Just because Mitt can name some Latino Republicans (and suck up to Rubio in particular) and pander to militant Cubans doesn't make him a friend to Latinos.

And his shameless pandering to the far-right GOP base, including on immigration, just makes him look like a bigoted nativist.

**********

I generally don't pay much attention to the political views of celebrities, but, to her credit, Longoria is pro-Obama and anti-Tea Party, and generally seems to be a very thoughtful person.

[President Obama] keeps getting beat up lately because there's such an extremist movement, and for me, it's very dangerous because its not the character of America," Longoria continued. And though she didn't specify that the movement beating up Obama she was referring to was the Tea Party, she later scoffed when Kimmel mentioned them, saying they were "good for comedy."

Watch:

Democrats can DREAM

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Following upon President Obama's immigration speech in El Paso yesterday, Senate Democrats will re-introduce the DREAM Act (in full, the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act), which would give undocumented young people a path to citizenship if they go to college or serve in the military. The bill passed the House in December but met obstruction in the Senate, where, of course, Republicans will again do their utmost to block it.

So what's the point? Well, it's the politics, not the policy (although the policy is good), and it's all about the Latino vote and its possible inclusion in a long-term Democratic majority.

In this case, it isn't just that the DREAM Act is broadly popular, or that the military supports it, it's that Latinos (or Hispanics, as the two terms are generally used interchangeably), perhaps the key emerging demographic group in the U.S., see it as essential.

As Janet Murguía, president and CEO of the National Council of La Raza, wrote about the House vote in December, this vote is "defining," meaning that it will be remembered. And what will be remembered is that Democrats supported the legislation and Republicans opposed it.

For more on this, and specifically on how Democrats and Republican stand in stark contrast to one another on immigration, see my post from last December.

Are we about to get DADT repeal?

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Maybe. Yes, just maybe. There's no good reason to be optimistic, given how the Senate works, but, well, things are looking good.

Massachusetts Republican Scott Brown today voiced his support for a stand-alone repeal of the military's Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy, bringing the bill one vote over the 60-vote threshold that it will need to reach if and when the Senate votes on the measure in the coming weeks...

Brown's backing means that – on paper – supporters of the repeal have 61 senators in favor of the bill. On Wednesday Republicans Olympia Snowe of Maine and Lisa Murkowski both announced their support for the stand-alone repeal. The House passed the clean repeal on Wednesday and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has vowed to bring it to a vote in the Senate before the end of the year.

With the $1.1-trillion omnibus budget bill pushed aside (and off into the next Congress), mainly because Republicans (who had been involved in crafting it) were going to use it to paralyze the Senate (by requiring that it be read in its entirety, out loud by Senate clerks, all 1,924 pages of it), there would now appear to be enough time to get DADT repealed and perhaps also START ratified.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced late today that he would hold cloture votes (which effectively end any filibusters) on DADT and the DREAM Act (which is unlikely to pass) on Saturday. It looks like the Senate will vote on stand-alone DADT repeal before turning to the START treaty.

Credit where credit is due: Joe Lieberman has been a big supporter of DADT repeal and seems to be the one behind this legislative strategy:

I want to thank Senator Reid for his leadership in bringing the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell Repeal Act of 2010" to the Senate floor for a vote. I am confident that we have more than 60 votes to end this law that discriminates against military service members based solely on their sexual orientation. Repealing "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" will affirm the Senate's commitment to the civil rights of all Americans and also make our military even stronger.

Now it's just a matter of getting the necessary Republican votes: Brown, Snowe, and Murkowski, and maybe also Collins, Lugar, and Voinovich.

No, we're not there yet, but we're close -- and I honestly didn't think it would get done.

And think about it.

If DADT is repealed and START is ratified, wouldn't that be an incredible way for this Congress to bow out? DADT repeal in particular would be a major victory for the Democrats' progressive base (and of course also for civil rights), particularly at the end of a two-year run that was hardly all that positive for progressives. And START ratification would be a major victory for Obama's foreign policy agenda.

It would be hard to maintain any momentum heading into the next Congress, with Republicans taking over the House and the Democrats coming back to a smaller majority in the Senate, but two such victories in the wake of the midterms and the bleak post-election period would give us a good deal to cheer about as we head into 2011.

House passes DREAM Act, a significant victory for Democrats

By Michael J.W. Stickings

As you may have heard, the DREAM Act (in full, the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act), which would give undocumented young people a path to citizenship if they go to college or serve in the military, passed the House yesterday. The vote was 216 to 198. Needless to say, it was the Democrats who voted for it.

But what now?

It is highly unlikely that the legislation will pass the Senate, where anti-immigrant Republicans (and most of them take a hard line on undocumented immigration) will do all they can to block it and where Democrats will need 60 votes to override an expected filibuster -- if it even gets that far. Even if the Senate gets the tax deal done, Republicans have committed themselves to obstruction of all Democratic legislation, and they aren't about to give Obama a victory, particularly on immigration. In the GOP, after all, nativism rules, and in this case the marriage of nativism and partisanship is a match made in right-wing heaven.

Even if the legislation fails, though, Democrats will win the politics -- which, in the long run, is significant. As Janet Murguía writes at The Hill:

As the largest Latino civil rights and advocacy organization in the United States, the National Council of La Raza (NCLR) is urging members of Congress to pass the "Development, Relief, and Education of Alien Minors (DREAM) Act." This sensible piece of legislation would allow undocumented kids who have grown up in this country the opportunity to achieve conditional legal status, and eventually earn the ability to apply for citizenship, if they attend college or serve in the military. Polls show the majority of the American public supports the measure. It has been supported by members on both sides of the aisle before, and we have an opportunity to see it pass this week.

*****

For Latinos, the fastest-growing segment of the nation's electorate, the DREAM Act vote is a defining one. For one, a significant number of these children are Latino. But more importantly, with this vote Congress can reaffirm the fundamental principle that in America we do not punish innocent children. This issue is near and dear to Latinos because, though the majority of Hispanics are U.S. citizens, we are keenly aware of the devastating effects of congressional inaction on immigration reform and believe America cannot afford to lose another generation of young people who stand to contribute to its economic and social prosperity.

The time for excuses is over. The DREAM Act has been around for over a decade, and has been debated and supported by members of both parties. It is time for a vote, and no amount of excuses will hide which members chose to stand for innocent children, and which did not. And Latinos will remember exactly which side those members chose.

It isn't just that the legislation is broadly popular, or that the military supports it, it's that Latinos (or Hispanics, as the two terms are generally used interchangeably), perhaps the key emerging demographic in the U.S., see it as essential. As Murguía notes, this vote is "defining," meaning that it will be remembered. And what will be remembered is that Democrats supported the legislation and Republicans opposed it.

Of course, we already knew where the two parties stood on the issue of undocumented immigration, but this bill (and especially the divided vote in the House and a likely non-vote in the Senate as a result of Republican opposition) essentially crystallizes the issue in clear and media-friendly terms:

Democrats want to give undocumented immigrants a path to citizenship, Republicans do not.

Democrats want to give the children of undocumented immigrants a chance to make it in America, Republicans do not.

Consider the alternatives: While Democrats want to act humanely and to recognize the valuable contributions undocumented immigrants have made and will make, as Americans, to American society, Republicans prefer persecution, imprisonment, and deportation.

While Democrats want America to be a free and open society that welcomes newcomers and understands why so many people risk their lives to make it to America, Republicans want America to be a fortress largely closed off to the outside world except for the free trade of goods to allow the rich to get richer and internally to be a police state that targets the Other, building walls to keep people out and apart, protecting privilege as it effectively disenfranchises the vast majority of Americans, documented or otherwise.

Yes, the two sides are clearly defined and, with this vote, and with the DREAM Act generally, the choice is clear.

Even if the Democrats ultimately lose in Congress, they stand to gain immensely at the polls down the road -- and that, one hopes, will finally lead not just to a path to citizenship for young people but for the acceptance, inclusion, and full participation in American society of those who came to America to make a better life for themselves and their families, and who only want to share in the hopes and dreams of what is supposedly a great nation.