The Political Chase

TPC Roundup - Managing Iraq with Filibusters

HEADLINES

• Republicans Support Bush with Filibusters
• Bush Wants Expansion of Warrantless Wiretaps
• Pentagon Report Highlights Failures in Iraq
• Agency Looking to Enhance Import Controls
• Rice, Palestinian and Israeli Leaders Hold Peace Conference

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CONGRESS

• “Senate Republicans” on Wednesday “rejected a bipartisan proposal to lengthen the home leaves of U.S. troops fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, derailing a measure that war opponents viewed as one of the best chances to force President Bush to accelerate a redeployment of forces,” the Washington Post reports. “The proposal, sponsored by Sens. James Webb (D-Va.) and Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.), failed on a 56 to 44 vote, with 60 votes needed for passage — a tally that was virtually identical to a previous vote in July.” See TPC related post.
• “A Republican filibuster in the Senate” on Wednesday “shot down a bipartisan effort to restore the right of terrorism suspects to contest in federal courts their detention and treatment, underscoring the Democratic-led Congress’s difficulty with terrorism issues,” the Washington Post reports. “The 56 to 43 vote fell short of the 60 needed to cut off debate and move to a final vote on the amendment to the Senate’s annual defense policy bill.” See TPC related post. 
• “The Food and Drug Administration would gain new authority to ensure the safety of prescription drugs, including the power to mandate label changes that warn of newly emerging risks, under a bill passed Wednesday by the House,” AP reports. “The bill, heralded as the most significant drug safety legislation in more than 40 years, passed on a 405-7 vote.”  
• “A bill to offer legal status to illegal immigrant students who have graduated from high school was revived this week in the Senate, the first effort to advance a piece of broad immigration legislation that failed in June,” the New York Times reports. Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., “who is an author of the student measure, said Wednesday that he would try this week to offer it as an amendment to the military authorization bill under debate in the Senate.”
• “The House on Wednesday passed a 15-year extension of a program to aid the insurance industry in the event of a terrorist attack,” AP reports. “The measure, passed 312-110, is aimed at ensuring that developers can get insurance against losses from potential attacks.”
• “House Republican leaders will launch a new offensive in the fight over earmark reform” this morning, “seeking to expand earmark disclosure requirements to tax and authorization bills,” The Hill reports. “Currently, only earmarks in appropriations bills are subject to new transparency requirements.”

WASHINGTON

• “President Bush said Wednesday he wants Congress to expand and make permanent a law that temporarily gives the government more power to eavesdrop without warrants on suspected foreign terrorists,” the Washington Post reports. “Without such action, Bush said, ‘our national security professionals will lose critical tools they need to protect our country.’” See TPC related post.
• “U.S. Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns is expected to resign” today “to clear the way for a Senate campaign in 2008, giving Republicans a welcome dose of good political news,” the Washington Post reports. “President Bush plans a White House announcement” this morning “with Johanns, a senior administration official said Wednesday. The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the announcement has not been made, would not confirm that Johanns is resigning.”
• “The Bush administration, acknowledging a moral obligation, intends to sharply increase the number of Iraqi refugees it will admit to the United States next year, a senior State Department official said Wednesday,” AP reports. “So far this year, 900 have been given refuge in this country, Ellen Sauerbrey, an assistant secretary of State, told the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom at a hearing on Capitol Hill.”
• “The Bush administration on Wednesday appointed two senior officials to clear bureaucratic roadblocks blamed by Washington for the painfully slow pace of admitting Iraqi refugees to the United States,” Reuters reports.

IRAQ

• “In another sign of U.S. struggles in Iraq, the target date for putting Iraqi authorities in charge of security in all 18 provinces has slipped yet again, to at least July,” AP reports. “The delay, noted in a Pentagon report to Congress on progress and problems in Iraq, highlights the difficulties in developing Iraqi police forces and the slow pace of economic and political progress in some areas. ”
• “Violence in Iraq has fallen to its lowest level since before a 2006 mosque attack which unleashed reprisal sectarian killings, the number two commander of U.S. forces in Iraq said” today, Reuters reports. “Lieutenant-General Raymond Odierno said attacks in Baghdad had also fallen about 50 percent since January, just before Washington began pouring 30,000 extra troops into Iraq to try to drag the nation back from the brink of civil war.”
• “A suicide car bomber blew himself up Wednesday and wounded four civilians while trying to hit an Iraqi army base in the northern city of Mosul, an Iraqi army officer said,” AP reports.
• “Iraq’s Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki proposed on Wednesday forming a cabinet of technocrats to replace his splintering national unity government and called for greater powers to push through his nominations,” Reuters reports. “Maliki’s 16-month-old government, which included Sunni and Shi’ite Arabs, Kurds, Islamists and secularists, has unravelled since a dozen Sunni and Shi’ite ministers quit.”
• “The United States and Iraq will form a joint commission to look into allegations that private guards protecting American diplomats killed Iraqi civilians and to review the U.S. Embassy’s security practices,” AP reports. “The size and composition of the commission have yet to be determined but its members are charged with assessing the results of both U.S. and Iraqi investigations of Sunday’s incident.”
• “The shooting incident involving private security guards in Baghdad on Sunday that left at least eight Iraqis dead has revealed large gaps in the laws applying to such armed contractors,” the New York Times reports. “Early in the period when Iraq was still under American administration, the United States government unilaterally exempted its employees and contractors from Iraqi law… thus the thousands of heavily armed private soldiers in Iraq operate with virtual immunity from Iraqi and American law.”
• “U.S. soldiers detained an Iranian” today “who was part of a commercial delegation visiting the northern Iraqi city of Sulaimaniya, an Iraqi government official in Baghdad said,” Reuters reports. “The official said U.S. forces detained the man at his hotel in Sulaimaniya, a city in Iraq’s largely autonomous region of Kurdistan.”

NATION

• “Leaders of the agency responsible for protecting consumers from faulty products said Wednesday that Congress should increase their budget and power in the wake of huge recalls of lead-contaminated toys,” AP reports. “The testimony from Consumer Product Safety Commission officials came as Mattel Inc., producer of 1.5 million of the 13.2 million toys recalled in the past month, said its tests found lead levels in paint in recalled toys as high as 200 times the accepted safety ceiling.”
• “Federal authorities are expected to file civil charges against current or former employees at several brokerage firms in connection to a years-long investigation into abusive stock lending, people familiar with the matter said,” the Wall Street Journal reports. “The civil complaint by the Securities and Exchange Commission, which also may involve the filing of criminal fraud charges, could come as soon as today, these people said.”
• “Spurred by the Internet and a popular disc jockey’s nationwide urban radio program, tens of thousands of people are expected to descend on a sleepy rural Louisiana town to protest what they say are excessive criminal charges against six black teenagers involved in a schoolyard brawl,” the Washington Post reports. “About 500 tour buses bearing thousands of riders were scheduled to depart from cities across the United States in the wee hours today for Jena, La., about 230 miles northwest of New Orleans.”
• “At the close of a two-day hearing on charges that Special Forces soldiers murdered an Afghan man near his home last October, it is increasingly evident that the Army is also examining itself and how it is fighting the war in Afghanistan,” the New York Times reports. “A Special Forces colonel presiding over the hearing must determine whether sufficient evidence exists to recommend courts-martial for the two soldiers accused of killing the man, Nawab Buntangyar, who had been identified as an ‘enemy combatant,’ while he walked unarmed outside his home near the Pakistan border. ”

WORLD

• “Palestinian leaders sought details” today “from Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice about the goals of what they hope will be a breakthrough Mideast peace conference, but the talks were overshadowed by Israel’s declaration of Hamas-run Gaza as ‘hostile territory,’” AP reports. “The Palestinians want the conference, tentatively set for November, to yield an outline for a peace deal, complete with timetable, while Israel wants a vaguer declaration of intent.”
• “A powerful car bomb in a Christian neighborhood just east of Beirut killed a Christian lawmaker from the governing coalition and six others Wednesday evening,” the New York Times reports. “It was the latest in a deadly string of bombings that have rocked Lebanon’s teetering political order as the country prepares to select a new president.” 
• “President Gen. Pervez Musharraf will seek a new five-year term in a presidential election set for Oct. 6, officials said” today, “even as opponents urged the courts to stop him from running and vowed to quit Parliament in protest,” AP reports. “After the U.S.-allied leader signaled his plan to resign as army chief if re-elected, the Election Commission announced that the ballot by federal and provincial lawmakers would be held Oct. 6.”
• “Al Qaeda’s second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahri urged Sudanese Muslims in a video posted” today “to fight a force of African Union and U.N. peacekeepers set to deploy to Sudan’s volatile western region of Darfur,” Reuters reports. “In an 80-minute compilation video that touched on a several conflicts, Zawahri criticised Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir’s decision to accept a U.N. resolution that lays the ground for a 26,000-strong joint AU-U.N. operation.”

SCANDALS

• “Besieged Rep. Jerry Weller (R-Ill.) is expected to announce as early as today that he is retiring from Congress, weeks after a Chicago newspaper exposed potentially questionable land deals in Central America,” Roll Call  (sub. req.) reports. “Republican sources confirmed late Wednesday that Weller will not seek an eighth term but were uncertain as to when he would announce his decision…Earlier this month, the Chicago Tribune published an investigation into Weller’s Nicaraguan land deals, suggesting that Weller has bought and sold several beachfront properties that he did not disclose on his financial disclosure forms. Weller was a strong advocate of the Central America Free Trade Agreement, which critics note provides protections to land investors in Central America — including Weller.”
• “The House Ethics Committee announced an investigation Wednesday of” California Rep. Bob Filner’s (D) “run-in with a baggage worker at Dulles International Airport last month,” AP reports. “The incident resulted in misdemeanor assault and battery charges against the congressman.”

TPC Round Up - Cover-Ups, Tasers, and Staged Rallies

HEADLINES

• State Department Official Investigated for Cover-Up
• NSA Claims No Warantless Wiretapping
• Democrats Demand Troop Withdrawal Deadline
• U.S and British Officials Downplay Iraq Differences
• Immigrants Protest at Capitol
• Student Protestor Tasered at Kerry Speech
• Rice Scolds U.N. over Iran Strategy

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WASHINGTON

“Howard J. Krongard, the State Department’s inspector general, has repeatedly thwarted investigations into contracting fraud in Iraq and Afghanistan, including construction of the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, and censored reports that might prove politically embarrassing to the Bush administration, the chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform charged” on Tuesday “in a 13-page letter,” the Washington Post reports. See TPC related post.

“The National Security Agency has not conducted wiretapping without warrants on the telephones of any Americans since at least February, the nation’s top intelligence officer told Congress on Tuesday,” the New York Times reports. “Mike McConnell, the director of national intelligence, told the House Judiciary Committee that since he took office that month, the government has conducted electronic surveillance only after seeking court-approved warrants.” See TPC related post.

“President Bush, cheered on by Iraq war veterans and their families on the White House’s South Lawn, urged lawmakers Tuesday to back his plan to withdraw some troops from Iraq but keep at least 130,000 through next summer or longer,” AP reports. “‘I ask the United States Congress to support the troop levels and the strategies I have embraced,’ Bush said, to loud cheers and chants of ‘USA! USA!’”

“President Bush defended himself Tuesday defended himself from criticism by former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan, who said Bush has not been a good shepherd of the economy,” according to a FOX News interview with the president. “Our fiscal record is admirable and good. After all, the deficit as a percentage of GDP is low relative to the 30-year average. It’s about 1.5 percent of GDP which is good, and we submitted a budget that shows we can get to balance.” See TPC related post.

“Internal discord in the office of U.S. Attorney Rachel Paulose has led to an investigation of complaints that she retaliated against dissenters,” the Star-Tribune reports. “The internal upheaval that roiled the upper ranks of the U.S. attorney’s office in Minnesota last spring has prompted an investigation by an independent federal agency that looks into whistleblower and discrimination complaints involving federal employees.” TPC reported on Ms. Paulrose back in April as the DOJ scandal was unfolding.

CONGRESS

“Unable to garner enough Republican support, Senate Democratic leaders said” on Tuesday “that they are abandoning a bipartisan effort to bring U.S. troops home from Iraq by next spring,” the Washington Post reports. Instead, Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid, D-Nev., “will again push for a firm deadline, this time June 2008, along with a stronger effort at cutting off war funding.” See TPC related post.

“Four new Senate Republicans signaled Tuesday that they may vote for a Democratic amendment aimed at giving U.S. troops in Iraq more time at home between deployments, helping Democrats inch closer to a rare victory on the conduct of the Iraq war,” The Hill reports. “The talks came amid tense backroom negotiations over the terms of the Iraq debate in the Senate, which is expected to dominate the floor schedule during the next two weeks. ”

Former House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., House Minority Whip Roy Blunt, R-Mo., “and 11 other members of Congress have been subpoenaed to testify in the trial of a defense contractor charged with bribing jailed” former Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham, R-Calif.,, USA Today reports. “All of the lawmakers said they do not intend to comply with the subpoenas.”

“Even as Senate Democrats on Tuesday softened demands that the White House provide thousands of documents in advance of a hearing to confirm Michael Mukasey as attorney general, they warned that it remained highly improbable that a vote on his installation would occur before the October recess,” Roll Call (sub. req.) reports. “The White House has asked Democrats to complete the confirmation process by Oct. 8 — a date on which Democrats said they are unlikely to meet.”

The House Federal Workforce Subcommittee split along party lines yesterday “over proposed legislation that would ban discrimination against federal employees and job applicants based on sexual orientation.” the Washington Post reports. “Republicans asked for a roll call, and Democrats, as the majority party, prevailed, 5 to 3.

“Twelve years after conservative Republicans in Congress were blamed for shutting down the government, they are introducing legislation to ensure that government continues to function no matter what,” The Hill reports. “Anticipating a showdown with Democrats that could force government offices to close, President Bush is backing the legislation.”

IRAQ

“The top two American military and diplomatic officials in Iraq sought to play down differences over Iraq policy as they met with senior British officials on Tuesday, at a time of mounting pressure here for the withdrawal of Britain’s remaining 5,200 soldiers from southern Iraq,” the New York Times reports. “At a news conference with Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker, Gen. David H. Petraeus sought to ease strains that developed this month when British commanders withdrew the 500-man contingent that comprised their last remaining troops in central Basra.”

“The U.S. military has introduced ‘religious enlightenment’ and other education programs for Iraqi detainees, some of whom are as young as 11, Marine Maj. Gen. Douglas M. Stone, the commander of U.S. detention facilities in Iraq, said yesterday, the Washington Post reports. “Stone said such efforts, aimed mainly at Iraqis who have been held for more than a year, are intended to “bend them back to our will” and are part of waging war in what he called ‘the battlefield of the mind.’ ”

“A preliminary Iraqi report on a shooting involving an American diplomatic motorcade said Tuesday that Blackwater security guards were not ambushed, as the company reported, but instead fired at a car when it did not heed a policeman’s call to stop, killing a couple and their infant,” the New York Times reports. “The report, by the Ministry of Interior, was presented to the Iraqi cabinet and, though unverified, seemed to contradict an account offered by Blackwater USA that the guards were responding to gunfire by militants.”

“A vast internal migration is radically reshaping Iraq’s ethnic and sectarian landscape, according to new data collected by thousands of relief workers, but displacement in the most populous and mixed areas is surprisingly complex, suggesting that partitioning the country into semiautonomous Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish enclaves would not be easy,” the New York Times reports. “In Baghdad alone there are now nearly 170,000 families, accounting for almost a million people, that have fled their homes.”

NATION

“About 1,000 highly skilled legal immigrants, carrying placards and wearing T-shirts emblazoned with American flags, rallied Tuesday at the Capitol to protest long delays and vast bureaucratic backlogs in the immigration system,” the New York Times reports. “The immigrants, including doctors, medical technicians and computer engineers from India and China, came from as far as California and Washington State to call on Congress to provide more permanent visas for highly educated immigrants and more resources for the overburdened immigration system.”

“Video of police Tasering a persistent questioner of Sen. John Kerry became an Internet and TV sensation Tuesday, generating fierce debate about free speech and the motives of the college student involved — a known prankster who often posts practical jokes online,” AP reports. “University of Florida President Bernie Machen said Monday’s takedown, in which the student loudly yelled, ‘Don’t Tase me, bro’ was ‘regretful.’”

“Advocacy groups sued the FBI and the Department of Justice on Tuesday for failing to turn over records they requested on surveillance in the Muslim-American community,” AP reports. “The complaint, filed in U.S. District Court in Santa Ana by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of the Muslim groups, alleges that the FBI has turned over only four pages of documents to community leaders, despite a Freedom of Information Act request filed more than a year ago. The documents were not related to surveillance.”

WORLD

“U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice scolded the U.N.’s atomic watchdog agency” today “over its Iran strategy and called for diplomacy with ‘teeth’ to end Tehran’s nuclear plans,” Reuters reports. “While repeating the U.S. stand that ‘all options’ remained on the table — a reference to military action against Tehran — Rice sought to ease fresh concerns over talk of war.”

“A multinational force commanded and led by British troops has launched a major offensive against the Taleban in the southern Afghan province of Helmand,” BBC News reports. “The operation involves about 700 men, mostly infantry and engineers. ”

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan “refused on Tuesday to rule out the possibility of military operations into northern Iraq to root out armed Kurdish separatist groups that he said had taken refuge in the border region,” the New York Times reports. “Mr. Erdogan also criticized some Western countries for what he called their increasingly hawkish stance against Iran.”

“Pro-Taliban militants in northwest Pakistan attacked a military checkpost” today “and captured seven paramilitary soldiers,” Reuters reports. “The raid was the latest in a series of bloody militant attacks on security forces and abductions of soldiers since July, when a pact with militants broke down and commandos stormed a radical mosque in Islamabad.”

TPC Roundup - Bombs Literally and Figuratively

HEADLINES

• Bush Drawing Iran War Plans
• Bush to Nominate Ex-Judge Attorney General
• Greenspan Says Iraq War About Oil
• Crocker Blasts Refugee Process
• France Warns of War with Iran
• Gates Sees Extended Stay in Iraq
• Medicare Recipients May Be Denied Drugs

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WASHINGTON

• “Senior American intelligence and defence officials believe that President George W Bush and his inner circle are taking steps to place America on the path to war with Iran,” the Telegraph reports.  “Pentagon planners have developed a list of up to 2,000 bombing targets in Iran, amid growing fears among serving officers that diplomatic efforts to slow Iran’s nuclear weapons programme are doomed to fail.” See TPC related post.
• “President Bush has decided to nominate Michael B. Mukasey, a former federal judge from New York…as his next attorney general,” the New York Times reports. If confirmed, “he would preside over a Justice Department that has been buffeted by Congressional inquiries into the firing of federal prosecutors and the resignation of the previous attorney general, Alberto R. Gonzales.” See TPC related post.
• “Alan Greenspan, the former Federal Reserve chairman, said in an interview that the removal of Saddam Hussein had been ‘essential’ to secure world oil supplies, a point he emphasized to the White House in private conversations before the 2003 invasion of Iraq,” the Washington Post reports. “Greenspan … made the striking comment in a new memoir out today that ‘the Iraq War is largely about oil.’” See TPC related post.
• “The Justice Department inappropriately put pressure on a former” Alaska state representative Victor Kohring “to consider pleading guilty in a corruption case, said his lawyer, who wants a federal judge to review the department’s actions,” the New York Times reports. “The case has reached into Washington, where a senator and a member of the House have come under scrutiny.”
• “Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell heads to Capitol Hill this week seeking to extend the government’s power to read e-mails, listen to telephone calls and carry out other surveillance within the USA in national security cases,” USA Today reports. “Democrats, including” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., “are criticizing McConnell’s proposals.”

IRAQ

• “Militants stepped up attacks across Iraq on Sunday, killing at least 30 people in a spate of bombings and shootings that followed a threat by al Qaeda to launch a new phase of violence,” Reuters reports. “Besides the attacks by militants, Iraqi police said security contractors were involved in an incident in which up to 10 people were shot dead in Baghdad’s western Mansour district.”
• “The U.S. ambassador to Iraq warned that it may take the U.S. government as long as two years to process and admit nearly 10,000 Iraqi refugees referred by the United Nations for resettlement to the United States, because of bureaucratic bottlenecks,” the Washington Post reports. “In a bluntly worded State Department cable titled ‘Iraqi Refugee Processing: Can We Speed It Up?’ Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker noted that the Department of Homeland Security had only a handful of officers in Jordan to vet the refugees.”
• “Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said he would advise President Bush to veto a Senate proposal that would effectively force a major drawdown of American forces in Iraq,” the Washington Times reports.  “The proposal, sponsored by Sen. James H. Webb Jr., Virginia Democrat, that would require that troops be given equal time off to match tours of duty, was dismissed by Mr. Gates as ‘a backdoor way to try and force the president to accelerate the drawdown.’ ”
• “The U.S. military said Sunday that its forces had captured an Iraqi suspected in the killing of a tribal leader who had helped organize local forces against Al Qaeda-linked insurgents in Anbar province,” the LA Times reports. “The slaying of Abdul Sattar Rishawi on Thursday was part of a plot by militants to kill leaders of the Anbar Salvation Council, a coalition of tribes, military officials said.”

NATION

• “An obscure provision slipped into a $120 billion Iraq spending bill in May threatens to leave some poor and disabled Medicaid recipients without prescription drugs in October,” USA Today reports. “In a case of unintended consequences, Congress inserted a rule cracking down on Medicaid fraud that requires that all non-electronic prescriptions for Medicaid patients be written on tamper-resistant paper.”
• “In the first major antiwar demonstration in the nation’s capital since January, several thousand protesters marched from the White House to the Capitol on Saturday, carrying signs and chanting slogans demanding an end to the Iraq war and the impeachment of President Bush,” the Los Angeles Times reports.  “A smaller group conducted a counter-demonstration to support the president and the war, leading to some heated confrontations. But the event was mostly peaceful — until more than 100 protesters jumped barriers around the Capitol and were arrested on the building’s steps late in the day.”

WORLD

• “French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner says the world should prepare for war over Iran’s nuclear programme,” the BBC reports. ” ‘We have to prepare for the worst, and the worst is war,’ Mr Kouchner said in an interview on French TV and radio.”
• “A suicide bomber blew himself up inside a local government compound in southern Afghanistan on Monday, killing four policemen and four civilians and wounding seven, the district chief said,” Reuters reports.   “He said the attack took place in the Naadali district of Helmand province, which has seen some of the worst violence between the resurgent Taliban on one side and Afghan and foreign troops on the other.”
• “Pakistan’s President Pervez Musharraf plans to stand down as army chief by 15 November, an official from the ruling Pakistan Muslim League (PML) says,” BBC News reports. “Musharraf will resign from the powerful post after the presidential elections, said Mushahid Hussain Sayed, the PML’s secretary general.”

Immigration Bill Fails in Senate

In a 46 to 53 vote, the immigration bill failed to obtain the required 60 votes needed for cloture.

Senate Will Debate Immigration Again

Majority Leader Harry Reid and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell agreed last night to return the immigration bill to the Senate floor for debate. Part of the agreement will allow approximately 20 amendments, split equally between parties, to be submitted. 

More Grass, Less Talk

It seems as if this sudden conservative grass-roots rising is having an impact and creating discourse.

From the Top 10 Conservative Idiots on the RNC:

I hate to break it to the House Minority Leader, but I think the Republican party might need more than a new slogan. Last week the Washington Times reported that “The Republican National Committee, hit by a grass-roots donors’ rebellion over President Bush’s immigration policy, has fired all 65 of its telephone solicitors.”

Apparently fired staffers are reporting that “many former donors flatly refuse to give more money to the national party if Mr. Bush and the Senate Republicans insist on supporting what these angry contributors call ‘amnesty’ for illegal aliens.” And now the RNC is estimating a 40% drop-off in small-donor contributions.

I don’t know what all the fuss is about. If their small-donor contributions have dropped off by 40% means that they’ll be bringing in $6 instead of $10 this year. Big deal. Who needs small donors when you’ve got Halliburton, Exxon-Mobil, and Wal-Mart, right?

Grass Roots Impact on Immigration Plan

Amazing. Neocons are trainable. They’ve learned how to use the Internets (Bush vernacular).

DeMint: I was against it before I was for it and now I’m against it

Trying to keep track of senators’ positions, especially Republicans like Jim DeMint (SC), is troublesome at best. Senator DeMint voted against the immigration bill, then voted for the same bill, but now says he is against it. DeMint’s not alone in flip-flopping, but clearly leads his flip-flopping GOP colleagues. What’s so contentious? The proposed guest-worker program, or what some refer to as amnesty. Most Democrats want a guest-worker program and Republicans view the program as a cardinal sin, at best. But, to try and get something passed, compromises have been made by members of both parties; however, Mr. DeMint followed by a few others have derailed the bill, and may have brought about its demise.

Why and how did DeMint, the junior senator from South Carolina, who is not a person of remarkably high intellect, pull this off? I can’t answer how with sufficient objectivity and DeMint’s stated reason(s) are dismissive and just don’t get it when put in the context of passing legislation. Mr. DeMint said, “”I think Republicans are trying to solve a real problem. I think the president is, too,” DeMint said. “But the American people don’t trust us.”

Indeed. The American people don’t trust the Republicans as evidenced by the last election, but can DeMint be a little more vague? What the heck is his point? While Senator DeMint and his followers have most of us shaking our heads and saying, “huh,” they are not winning any points with leadership of both parties either.

Two weeks ago, when the immigration bill landed on the Senate floor, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) voted against an amendment that targeted one of its key provisions: a guest-worker program that President Bush and many U.S. companies have sought for years.

Shortly after midnight yesterday, DeMint returned to the floor and, along with three conservative Republican colleagues, voted in favor of the same measure he had opposed, to sunset the program after five years. Not that DeMint has anything against guest workers. He supports the idea. But weakening the guest-worker program would leave the bill in tatters — and in the twisted logic of the Senate, that served DeMint’s greater goal of derailing the legislation.

“I’m embarrassed to say they were trying to kill the bill, and I’m ashamed of it,” Republican Whip Trent Lott (Miss.) said of DeMint and his associates. He fumed that the senators had voted against their principles and on an amendment offered by Democrats, no less.

Dan Balz of the Washington Post seems to have a pretty good grasp on what’s really going on:

The partisan blame game was already at fever pitch as the bill was going down yesterday. But to those far removed from the backrooms of Capitol Hill, what happened will fuel cynicism toward a political system that appears incapable of finding ways to resolve the nation’s big challenges.”

The collapse of comprehensive immigration revision in the Senate last night represents a political defeat for President Bush, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), the bill’s most prominent sponsors. More significantly, it represents a scathing indictment of the political culture of Washington.

The defeat of the legislation can be laid at the doorstep of opponents on the right and left, on congressional leaders who couldn’t move their troops and on an increasingly weakened president and his White House team. But together it added up to another example of a polarized political system in which the center could not hold.

The government is gridlocked and it’s doubtful there will be any change before 2009.

BREAKING: Reid Pulls Immigration Bill

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid fulfilled his promise to yank the highly debated immigration bill (S.AMDT.1150) off the floor if Republicans did not get their act together and agree on a bill that would at least pass a cloture vote. With 60 votes required for cloture, the Senate voted 45 - 50 against cutting off the debate.

From Roll Call (sub. req.):

“There’s been a lot of bending over backwards to accommodate people who wanted to offer amendments,” Reid said on the floor after the vote. “Republicans even objected to calling up their own amendments.”

Still, Reid promised to bring the bill back to the floor if the bipartisan negotiators could negotiate a limited number of amendments and a time certain for a vote on final passage.

The vote capped off a day that was fraught with tension as bill backers scrambled to reach a compromise on the number of amendments on which they would allow conservative Republicans to have votes, even though many of the proposals were considered contentious or regarded as poison-pills.

But that effort was stymied, several GOP sources said, because conservatives such as Sens. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) and Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) could not whittle down their list of amendments to no more than 10.

“The dealmakers are trying to ram through a massive reform written in secret, trying to cut off debate and deny votes on dozens of Republican amendments,” said DeMint spokesman Wesley Denton. “Sen. DeMint’s had it with this bill and this broken process, and he’s going to demand his colleagues get their right to full debate and votes.”

Republican members of Congress fighting amongst themselves and opposing President Bush’s position as well on this immigration bill will cause the party to crumble going into the 2008 elections. Moreover, if the GOP allows Jim DeMint to take them down further, they deserve it. The junior Senator from South Carolina is not what I would describe as ”most likely to succeed” material.

Late Update: To illustrate how controversial this bill is, the bill has officially been amended 47 times since May 21. That does not include the amendments discussed above.

Immigration Bill Fails in Heated Senate Debate

Republicans in the Senate, joined by 15 Democrats, blocked a vote to cut off debate on a highly controversial immigration bill, which exacerbated Majority Leader Harry Reid’s frustrations over Republicans’ inability to come to consensus within their own party.

“It’s daylight hours in Europe. Maybe [White House chief of staff] Josh Bolten can make some calls,” Reid said, warning, “The headlines are going to be, ‘The president fails again.’ It’s his bill.”

Yesterday, Reid accused Republicans (sub.  req.) of using “stall tactics” to extend debate on the bill, and is consequently holding up other pressing matters. And so the debate continues on what seems to be analogous to the Continental Congress debate on the United States Constitution.