Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) says that President Obama’s action on immigration is just like when FDR sent Japanese Americans to internment camps during WWII.
Now we know the theme song for Paul’s 2016 presidential campaign — “If I Only Had a Brain” from the Wizard of Oz.
“You just had a lot of members who just don’t want to vote for anything.” Devin Nunes (R-CA)
The House couldn’t pass a border bill today despite House leaders’ efforts to get their most intransigent members on board by sweetening the deal for them.
The Anarchist wing of the GOP has taken over. Hey, Boehner, you reap what you sow, and you sowed a crop of nut jobs.
As we write Eric Cantor’s political obituary, the cause of death should be arrogance, not immigration.
When I heard Cantor was out, I immediately thought of Scott Brown defeating Martha Coakley for Senate in Massachusetts. Coakley ran a lazy campaign, taking victory for granted in the deep blue state. She famously asked if she should have stood in the cold, shaking hands at Fenway Park. Um, yes, Martha, that is exactly what you should have done. Like Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction, voters don’t respond well to being ignored. Come election day, they will boil your bunny, metaphorically speaking.
Cantor spent too much time being majority leader and too little being congressman from the seventh district of Virginia. Now he will be neither.
Yes, David Brat got a boost from right-wing radio hosts like Laura Ingraham and Mark Levin, but they also regularly tout candidates who flop.
Yes, Brat got a boost for running on an anti-immigration platform at a time when right-wing media are focused on the flood of unaccompanied young people coming across the border and overwhelming authorities. But down in South Carolina, Sen. Lindsey “Butters” Graham, who supports immigration reform, won without even having to face a runoff because he took his primary seriously and protected himself in every way he could think of. By contrast, Cantor brushed Brat off like an annoying mosquito.
Butters will be back next year because he ran full of fear, Cantor won’t be back because he ran full of himself.
From “Tea Party Ain’t Over Yet: How Conservatives Still Control Congress,” Talking Points Memo:
“The tea party has taken a series of hits since it goaded Republican leaders into a costly and self-defeating government shutdown last fall. But the conservative movement remains formidable when it comes to pushing Republican leaders to just say no, at all costs, to new economic and domestic initiatives that aren’t essential to avert immediate crisis.
“The emerging dynamic is one where the tea party can no longer hold the basic functions of government hostage to conservative policy reforms, but has effective veto power over major new proposals that require bipartisan deal-making.
“Even on initiatives that are broadly popular, as in the case of emergency unemployment compensation and raising the minimum wage, conservatives have successfully blocked any movement forward.
“An initiative that Republican strategists say is imperative to stave off electoral extinction — immigration reform — isn’t going anywhere. Recently, Speaker John Boehner took a significant step toward action by releasing a pro-reform blueprint. But within one week, after a fierce backlash from tea party organizations…he hit the brakes and signaled that the House wouldn’t take up reform.” Emphasis added.
A minority of the minority is controlling this country, is keeping it from moving forward economically and socially. It really doesn’t matter at all that Obama beat Mitt, that Dems have a majority in the Senate (because you need 60), and that Dem House candidates got over a million more votes than GOP candidates. What the hell did we win exactly?
“If we don’t pass immigration reform this year, we will not win the White House back in 2016, 2020, or 2024.”
John Feehery, who was chief of staff to GOP House Speaker Dennis Hastert
They’re not passing immigration reform this year.
House Speaker John Boehner agrees with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell that immigration reform won’t happen this year.
Sen. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) says immigration reform won’t happen this year.
He says the GOP wants piecemeal reform, while the Dems want comprehensive reform, and there’s no way to resolve that.
Also, the Dems insist on a path to citizenship, while Republicans want legalization without that path. The GOP doesn’t want to create a whole lot of new Dem voters. And comprehensive immigration reform along the lines of the Senate-passed bill would infuriate their base, causing many of them to stay home in 2014.
As usual, the GOP is on the wrong side of history with no good options. Quel dommage.
On “Face the Nation” today, Bob Schieffer repeatedly pressed John Boehner on whether or not he supports a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.
Boehner wouldn’t answer! Speaker of the House is supposed to be one of the most powerful positions in Washington, where you take a stance and work your will on your members.
His refusal to answer is a sad commentary both on Boehner personally and on the make-up of this particular House.
Boehner seems to be “leading from behind,” far, far behind. You can barely see him way off in the distance. Perhaps he’s searching for his testicles…
From Josh Marshall over at Talking Points Memo:
“Rubio’s vulnerability is so great in part because he staked so much on immigration reform as a way to loft himself to the top tier of 2016 GOP candidates. But the other part is because there was so little to the man in the first place absent his fortuitous would-be positioning as the young new Hispanic face of a Republican party reeling from a reputation for having little to no traction with America’s burgeoning non-white population.
“Remember, Rubio was basically an accidental Senator, swept up in the floodtide of the 2010 Tea Party mid-term, though it’s true that many careers start that way.
“Now that it’s clear that the base of the GOP – as expressed in the House GOP’s diehard desire to kill reform – is emphatically not on board with the Senate immigration bill to which he tied his fate, his whole plan for the 2016 run is basically in a shambles and his support among conservatives is falling rapidly.
“If you’ve watched over recent weeks, Rubio has been casting around for basically any right wing position to grab on to.
“So now Rubio seems trapped, on the wrong side of his party’s base on a key issue – and one that looks unlikely even to deliver legislation that might have bipartisanship traction with middle-ground voters. It’s one thing to say ‘I bucked my party to bring change the country needs’, another to say ‘I bucked my party on change my country needs but it actually didn’t pan out. Sorry.’ And now he’s forced to become some sort of hyperactive conservative wild man – what he wasn’t supposed to be – in order to recoup ground on the right that likely can’t be salvaged.”
Emphasis added.
“The very issue Rubio…thought would be a game-changing, legacy-builder looks like a big liability for the Florida senator, at least right now. In the process, the self-confident presidential hopeful suddenly looks wobbly, even a little weak, as he searches for what’s next.
“Rubio appears to have miscalculated how much Republican support he could win in the Senate – and how much conservative backlash he could avoid outside of it. And now he feels stuck. Conservative intellectual leaders – notably Rich Lowry of National Review… and Bill Kristol of The Weekly Standard — are crusading against his bill, backed by the vast majority of conservatives in the House.”
From “Marco Rubio Stumbles,” Mike Allen and Jim VandeHei, Politico
Embattled Farmers 