24 Republican Senators, urged on by President Bush, have joined 39 Democrats to move forward the despicable immigration bill. Democrats everywhere should celebrate because now is the time for Republicans to metaphorically slit their own throats and walk away from the GOP at the polls next year. Whomever gets the presidential nomination may be able to save their hides by coming out against the bill, but these Senators who have turned their backs on the security of this nation and the NRSC which prostitutes itself for money can forget any support from a large number of their conservative base. GOP Congressmen had best take all this anger under advisement before they cast their votes, because this isn’t a joke, will not be forgiven by election time and will put their seats into serious jeopardy. As of this moment, my own Senator, John Warner, is as dead to me as Hillary Clinton and I will vote Democrat or third-party before I ever vote for that man again. I contacted both Senator Warner’s office and that of my Congresswoman to let them know exactly what I think of all this. Congrats Majority Leader Reid & Speaker Pelosi, odds are that you both will retain your positions next year which I truly hate saying.
Letter to Senator John Warner (R-VA):
Dear Senator:
Your vote today to move forward the immigration bill is beyond contempt. You have turned your back on the security of this nation by doing this. Amnesty I can live with once the border is secured FIRST yet this bill is nothing more than another sham that will do nothing. I have had it with the Republican Party, their lies and betrayal of principles it supposedly espouses. Please remove my name and address from any mailings immediately as all correspondence will be tossed unopened into the trash. As of this moment, consider my vote lost to you for re-election and I will vote for anyone else other than you in 2008.
Letter to my Congresswoman (R-VA):
Madam Congresswoman:
I am beyond outraged by today’s vote in the Senate on the immgration bill. This is a betrayal of Republican principles and ignores the security of this nation. Amnesty I can live with once the border is secured FIRST yet this bill is nothing more than another sham that will do nothing. I have had it with the lies from elected Republican officials who say one thing and vote a different way once in office. If you vote for this bill when it comes to the House, than I promise you I will vote for anyone else regardless of the issues that come up in 2008. Please do what is right for this country and vote to reject this bill. Thank you.
— John (Average Gay Joe)
John Warner isn’t going to run for re-election anyway.
I’m at a low grade fury at one of my own Senators, Senator Gregg. This is the second time this year he’s voted on cloture for the amnesty bill current at the time. His office had the audacity to issue a press release entitled “Senator Gregg Votes To Continue Debate On Immigration Reform.” Well, no, that’s not what cloture means, Senator, and this isn’t plain vanilla “immigration” reform. The press release ends with him saying ‘“So I have voted to allow debate on this important measure, but do so with serious reservations about the present form of the legislation. I am hopeful that substantive improvements can be made to this bill; however, if they are not, this bill will fail and I will vote against it.”’ If he has such serious reservations about it, why did he vote for cloture? He can’t have it both ways. I can’t even imagine how he thinks the current bill can be substantively “improved” with McCain’s, Kenndey’s and Bush’s grubby hands all over it.
Does anyone want to speculate on just why the World’s Greatest Deliberative Body and GWB are hell-bent on passing this monster?
I am completely clueless here. Does someone have pictures of a Senate orgy or something?
Pork barrel spending, tax increases, meddling in private affairs, resolutions proclaming National Chick Pea Day… all that I can understand. But an irreversible decision to turn this country into another Latin American train wreck is beyond me.
Just imagine the Adminstration putting this much effort into pushing meaningful Social Security reform or, I don’t know, getting us out of Iraq.
Robert, I honestly don’t know – but the simplest, most plausible (by Ockham) theory I’ve heard is that our political class in both parties is just plain self-important out of touch. Most likely they think of the immigration issue in terms of their own maids, nannies, gardeners, illegal earners in Nancy Pelosi’s various hypocritical / exploitive businesses, etc.
#3. Glad I left the party two years ago. On a related note, add the asinine position Cheney is taking in order to block congress from gaining access to VP logs, that he is a member of the legislative branch and therefore is immune from Congress’s oversight over him.
Both of my senators voted against cloture, yet it doesn’t really make me feel better.
How many Republicans voted in favor, 24? Shame!! If the Constitution Party wasn´t anti-gay and had a reasonable chance of winning elections I´d switch my registration. Libertarians can´t seem win any office but dog catcher and they support open borders. Lou Dobbs and Glen Beck both ask the question, doesn´t anybody in the senate listen to the voice of the people? The fact that Mexican trucks owned by drug cartels
may go beyond the the 70 mile limit was attached to a spinach bill. What are they delivering? Drugs? Illegals? Trucks from the USA can´t enter Mexico. Where is the reciprocity? I was under the impression(mistaken) that NAFTA was to be a two way street. As Pat Buchanan stated in his book quoting the first right wing president of Mexico, “we.re going to send more people north” Pat asks the question, “why doesn´t he fix what is wrong with the economy so that people will stay in their country instead of moving northward.
…. “On a related note, add the asinine position Cheney is taking in order to block congress from gaining access to VP logs, that he is a member of the legislative branch and therefore is immune from Congress’s oversight over him.”
There is some Constitutional-grounding to that position; though the back-blast may be that the SCOTUS and Congress could preclude any future VP from sitting on the Cabinet or affecting Executive policy. Returning the VP-‘s role to that prior to the Eisenhower administration….that of a “super”-Senator elected by the Electoral College who’s only role is presiding over the Senate as a potential tie-breaker.
The Constitution as-written basically only requires the VP to do two things;
1. Vote when there’s a Senatorial Tie. Otherwise he really doesn’t even have to preside if he so chooses, as long as he’s available.
2. Check the newspaper each the morning to ascertain the President’s continued good-health.
Harry Truman wasn’t strategically-briefed, allowed to set-foot in WW2’s White House Map Room, nor told of the Bomb until after he was sworn-in as President. Many prior VP’s never entered the White House except as guests for State Dinners…if they were invited in the first-place. Most politically-knowledgeable Americans can’t even name the 20th-century VP’s prior to Nixon other than Presidents Taft, Coolidge and Truman. And even in their own days, they were remembered as their party’s representative on Capitol Hill…if they were remembered at-all.
#8. That may be all well and good, but the argument just doesn’t hold water. Under current law, the VP is elected at the same time as the President, they run on the same ticket. Originally, the VP was the second highest vote getter in the Presidential election. If the founding fathers has intended that the VP serve as a member of the Legislative branch, they would have made the selection process of that post part of the legislative election cycle, not the executive. The drafters of the Constitution didn’t have much of an idea just what the VP should do, so they made him the tie breaker in the Senate. But the position of the VP has, since its inception, never been seen anything except a part of the executive branch. I defy you to find any evidence of any VP officeholder (besides Cheney) who has acted otherwise. It’s just stupid. Plus, it was Cheney just a few years ago who claimed that congress shouldn’t see his energy policy guest list because that would hinder the ability of the executive branch to interview experts in order to form policy? That doesn’t jive with his current / latest attempt at evasion of oversight.
Plus, if we accepted Cheney’s argument that he is part of the Legislative branch, well, then he should be impeached immediately for encroaching on executive power, since he has, with his involvement in crafting GWOT / Iraq, and torture policy, basically run the executive branch for the last six years.
you know what’s worse than a mean spirted liberal frothing at the mouth? a mean spirited conservative frothing at the mouth! for weeks now i have listened to otherwise sensible voices on conservative talk radio demonizing good republicans either in the senate or just as likely president bush. how sad it is to see us down in the sewer usually reserved for the likes of randy rhodes or howard dean. do we really have so little respect for ourselves and our party that we now resort to the same tactics we have for years derided from those on the other side of the political spectrum. we claim the moral high ground when we rightly argue that judges deserve an up or down vote on the senate floor, yet as soon as that concept no longer fits our political desires we jettison it like an unprincipled liberal. how can we be taken seriously? i’m not even arguing the merit of the bill, just our shameful way of discussing it. the most disgraceful aspect of the debate has been the way many of us have discarded president bush. many of us hail him as a principled conviction politician when he agrees with us but as soon as he doesn’t agree the long knives come out. shameful!!! agree with him or not you can’t argue with his sincerity on this issue. he truly believes this is the right thing to do and we should be confident enough in our party and our convictions to take the high road in how we deal with the discussion.
I wrote:
I defy you to find any evidence of any VP officeholder (besides Cheney) who has acted otherwise.
“Acted” was a poor choice of words. There is no evidence that I know of that any of the first VP’s (John Adams, Thomas Jefferson
Bill, I was going to go down the same road and compare the immigration bill proceeding to the recent hubbub over the Mass. Anti-Gay Marriage amendment defeat.
Ooops! What happened to my post? It should have read:
“Acted” was a poor choice of words. There is no evidence that I know of that any of the first VP’s (John Adams, Thomas Jefferson
One More Time:
Ooops! What happened to my post? It should have read:
“Acted” was a poor choice of words. There is no evidence that I know of that any of the first VP’s (John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Aaron Burr, etc.), the guys who would have had the best concept of the intent of the postion by far, had thought of themselves as anything other than a member of the executive branch. They always understood their role as the undrstudy to the lead actor, the President.
Reading the bits about Cheney, if the Democrats had any balls, they’d simple say to the Vice-President: If you continue to assert that your office is not part of the Executive Branch, Congress will take action to remove you from office.
Cheney would then no doubt argue that he can’t be impeached, due to his being part of the legislative branch, LOL. Which would be tricky since Article 4, Section 2 specifically names the Vice-President, along with the President and all other civil officers, as being eligible for impeachment.
#10
Soooo….. If you elected me to office and I turned around and told you that you don’t know what the hell you’re talking about, that would be fine with you? If I put forth a bill which you didn’t agree with and I gave you the proverbial finger, called you a racist, xenophobe etc. what would you do?
Consider, especially, that in crafting the bill, I bypassed the usual necessary steps and gave blatantly racist organizations input in that bill, would you be happy with that?
Chase, I was going to say the same thing, and bring up the unsuccessful impeachment trial of Aaron Burr. But after a little digging, I found that Reps. and Senators are included in the category of “all other civil officers”. The first civil officer to be impeached on the national level (according to wiki = grain of salt) was a Senator from Tennessee, William Blout in 1799.
PS. God I love the information age. Finding this info would have probably taken me hours and most likely a trip to the library in the old days.