Who's in Charge? "Dream Act" Fails, Southwick Wins

By Jeralyn, Section Legislation
Posted on Wed Oct 24, 2007 at 02:31:06 PM EST
Tags: Dream Act, Leslie Southwick (all tags)

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With votes like these, it's difficult to believe the Democrats are the majority party in Congress. The Senate vote to advance the Dream Act failed today.

Supporters needed to get 60 votes to advance the DREAM Act, which would have allowed illegal immigrants who plan to attend college or join the military, and who came to the United States with their families before they turned 16, to move toward legality. The final vote was 52-44.

Despite efforts of Sen. Harry Reid and Dick Durbin, the Republican opposition framing the bill as one of amnesty prevailed.

More....

"Children should not be penalized for the actions of their parents," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. "What crime did these children commit?" added Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., the Senate's No. 2 Democrat. "They committed the crime of obeying their parents and following their parents to this country. Do you think there was a vote in the household about their future? I don't think so."

In another defeat for Democrats, the Senate today confirmed conservative Judge Leslie Southwick to a seat on the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Liberal and civil rights groups opposed Southwick. They charged that as a state appeals judge for 13 years he consistently sided with businesses over workers and consumers.

Republican-Lite Sen. Diane Feinstein and Sen. Ben Nelson of the Gang of 14 crossed sides and voted with the Republicans.

People for the American Way castigates the Dems for their vote."

We are deeply disappointed in the Senate Democrats who acquiesced to the President today on Southwick’s nomination.

“That’s not what Americans voted for when they gave Democrats a majority in the Senate. Senate Democrats must hold the President to his 2006 pledge of bipartisanship and cooperation by rejecting nominees who fail to interpret the law fairly for all Americans.”

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Who's in Charge? "Dream Act" Fails, Southwick Wins | 37 comments (37 topical)

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Lots to be afraid of (5.00 / 1) (#9)
by tnthorpe on Thu Oct 25, 2007 at 12:36:06 PM EST

Educating children is dangerous, just like providing health insurance to children is dangerous, only in the minds of the ideologically blinded. Seem to have a fair number of them on this site and way too many in both parties.

Educated undocumented children? What would happen to Fortress America then? Would there be compulsory chimichangas in the school cafeterias? Flan? Horchata?

Beyond the catastrophic cholesterol levels, just think of what they'll do to our culture. Our culture that without cripplingly expensive, hermetically sealed, militarized borders will simply be diluted (by which is meant "polluted" in line with the great American tradition of immigrant bashing which is what the Senate failure represents) by the nefarious styles of Latino culture. The telenovelas! The horror! The horror!

Instead of standing firmly for the principle of inclusion, the Senate under the Dems stood in the way of progress, as they have so so so often of late. Judge Southwick is just one such example of the Dems' unending capacity to move backward because it's easy, rather than demand better nominations and get results.

This is exactly the rhetoric that defeats (none / 0) (#10)
by Pancho on Thu Oct 25, 2007 at 12:57:07 PM EST

bills like the Dream act. If this passed you would have immediately insisted that the provisions be extended to ALL children here illegally, and all that are yet to come.


Give it a rest (5.00 / 1) (#11)
by tnthorpe on Thu Oct 25, 2007 at 01:11:52 PM EST

The DREAM Act would have done no such thing. It would simply have failed to punish, which is what the mouth-breathing right can't tolerate. You gotta stop eating those wingnut-butter sandwiches.


Believe what you want, (none / 0) (#12)
by Pancho on Thu Oct 25, 2007 at 01:26:01 PM EST

but history has spoken loudly and we refuse to be fooled again.


wrong (5.00 / 1) (#13)
by tnthorpe on Thu Oct 25, 2007 at 01:35:19 PM EST

it's not history speaking loudly but bigots like Tancredo who use the media like a megaphone to broadcast intolerance.

It's you on the wrong side of history here, and anyone who studied population movement under global capital for even a minute would realize that national borders are no barrier to people confronted with grim personal circumstances. Not understanding that makes fortress America types the biggest fools of all.


Why are people like you afraid to say (none / 0) (#14)
by Pancho on Thu Oct 25, 2007 at 01:57:41 PM EST

"open borders"?

Where would you draw the line?


why are (5.00 / 1) (#15)
by tnthorpe on Thu Oct 25, 2007 at 02:51:41 PM EST

people like you afraid to say fascist?

It's just too obvious?

If you implement economic policies that force people off the land in Central America (through the IMF, NAFTA, WTO, World Bank), and if you allow finance capital to run amok (to the cheapest labor, laxest regulation of labor, environment, etc) then SURPRSE SURPRISE people who can leave those devastated economies attempt to do so.

Fix economic policies that immiserate vast swathes of population for a start. The problem is national/international, so what if maybe instead of whining about how THEY'RE hurting US, we demanded that the US Gov't, Central Am. gov'ts, immigrant groups, and US business and citizen groups sit down together and make something work?

But it's much more attractive to whine and race bait, if some of the posts I read here are any indication.


: Should we first (none / 0) (#16)
by Pancho on Thu Oct 25, 2007 at 03:15:37 PM EST

study the causes of the California fires before we attempt to put them out?
You never answered my question.
Are you suggesting that open borders are the only viable solution other than fixing all the problems of the world?
What does race have to do with it?

tnthorpe (none / 0) (#17)
by jimakaPPJ on Thu Oct 25, 2007 at 07:51:54 PM EST

Instead of standing firmly for the principle of inclusion,

I know that is a buzz world the proponents of open borders like, but it is has nothing to do with controlling our borders.


It's a buzz world (5.00 / 1) (#19)
by tnthorpe on Thu Oct 25, 2007 at 08:59:36 PM EST

after all, eh?

You have no ideas about immigration, just fear mongering and rabid claptrap imported from looney tune reactionary blogs. Your defense of civ posture is just sad. Give it up. Surely Gates of Vienna can offer you some better wingnut talking points.


You have no solutions. (none / 0) (#21)
by jimakaPPJ on Fri Oct 26, 2007 at 07:42:02 AM EST

I have never seen you offer any solution to anything associated with illegal immigration and its fruit, illegal aliens.

Here are some things a reasonable person would consider.

Wouldn't it be a better solution for the individuals if their native countries solved the problems that drive their citizens to leave?

How can we help them?

Will enabling the individuals to leave provide any impetus for Mexico to have a more open and equitable society? Or Algeria? SA?

Doesn't illegal immigration release the stress that otherwise would force changes in the countries of origin??

Low pay and poor working conditions are changed by a reduction in the size of the labor force, with governmental help in enforcement. Labor is a product. Price is always sensitive to availability. Closing the border would be a huge step in dong that.

Your continual demands and claims of support remind me of a child playing in the sand pile while adults make concrete and lay bricks.


Can you offer anything (none / 0) (#24)
by Pancho on Fri Oct 26, 2007 at 08:20:10 AM EST

other than your freaking asinine repetition of terms like "wingnut" and "talking points"?

You can't can you?

I live in Waukegan Il, and my city has been invaded by tens thousands of illegal aliens. I know what the issues are. You have nothing but angry liberal platitudes, and talk of evil American policies.

Give me a solution that doesn't involve fixing the whole world first.


You are two (5.00 / 1) (#25)
by tnthorpe on Fri Oct 26, 2007 at 11:58:16 AM EST

sad peas in a pod.

Invaded? Such hyperbolic rhetoric is all you have, both of you. Not at all my experience of people from Central America, but then your experience must be the norm, eh, you and ppj are what, the voice of the downtrodden American middle class? Please, you flatter yourselves. I've written in several posts about what it will take for a solution to the issue of labor movement. Guess what guys, it's going to take an international effort and there are no easy, immediate solutions. You both prefer to whine and spit about the issue . SUIT YOURSELVES!!

You are both wingnuts. It's your positions and attitudes that are asinine, whether the serial idiocy of PPJ with his "horse t*rds" and "repeat after me" and your pathetic whining about the brown horde. We will be living with folk from Central America for the rest of our lives, so deal with it.

I'm not impressed by either of your grasp of the issue, and if all you have to do in response to what I post is stamp your foot and pout that some nasty liberal treated you mean then save yourselves the trouble.

You are both simply getting from me what you have dished out, and if you don't like it, stop being TROLLS!!!!


Ah, the old (none / 0) (#26)
by jimakaPPJ on Fri Oct 26, 2007 at 12:22:46 PM EST

I'm a tough guy routine, eh??

I have no idea as to the problems Pancho mentions.

But since he is an American citizen, why do you expect him to endure/support policies that enable illegal aliens and the problems he writes about that they cause??

Which matters most to you? The safety and satisfaction of a US Citizen, or... Wait no reason to answer. You believe in Open Borders. So the fact that people illegally in the country are causing a problem for Pancho means nothing.

Yet you believe that Pancho is supposed to want tax money spent to protect and help people in CA fight the fires, and in NO, recover from a hurricane.... but not for his own benefit.

The reason we have borders and discrete countries is that we can have mutual support via government.
When you say it doesn't matter if an outside group is causing problems, then you have taken a huge chunk out of the basics of the country.


The Dream Act (none / 0) (#27)
by tnthorpe on Fri Oct 26, 2007 at 12:36:16 PM EST

is fine legislation that's being held up by xenophobic, culture warriors for none other than the most basic ideological purposes.

Your whine about tax efficiency rings hollow when you say so little to chastise the Bush Administration for its rampant deficits which are a tax on America's future.

Stop the wingnutbutter sandwiches man, they're not good for your intellectual health.


What junior high teaches this crap? (none / 0) (#29)
by Pancho on Fri Oct 26, 2007 at 12:45:58 PM EST

Stop the wingnutbutter sandwiches man, they're not good for your intellectual health

Grow up and bring some facts about the situation not your GD juvenile catch phrases.


Why don't (none / 0) (#30)
by tnthorpe on Fri Oct 26, 2007 at 12:48:20 PM EST

you try the same, Pancho. Stop with the hysterical nonsense about the destruction of middle America and respond to the people you live with with something like compassion.

If you're gonna post garbage, I'm gonna call it that, and it looks like pure wingnuttery to me.


I deal with it on a daily basis,and (none / 0) (#32)
by Pancho on Fri Oct 26, 2007 at 12:57:08 PM EST

the good and the bad. I help my neighbors without regard to their immigration status and I have respect for those who come here to work and pay their own way, or at least with minimal temporary assistance.

it pisses me off greatly when someone like you tells me that I am xenophobic, because I point out huge problems with the disrespectful hordes(yes, hordes) that come here looking to get something for nothing.

If you are an illegal alien who is gangbanging, you need to be deported immediately. If you have an anchor baby and you want that kid educated in this country, you better figure out a way to have him prepared to learn in English five years later.

We can have a conversation, but don't tell me I'm racist.


Where in my posts (none / 0) (#33)
by tnthorpe on Fri Oct 26, 2007 at 01:07:36 PM EST

do I defend gangbanging, dope dealing, prostitution, or whatever crime you might want to name? Send those folk back, pronto. Where does the Dream Act sanction such behaviour? It rewards achievement and promotes it. Got a problem with that?

Here's the deal, you stop posting cra* about "sh*tcan Mexicans" and I'll treat your ideas with some respect. Don't whine about being called xenophobic when you write such tripe.

Members of my family were once illegal, now are legal. They have been teachers and business owners. Their children are college educated, and are everything from parole officers to veterinarians. Your gross mischaracterization of undocumented immigrants offends me, because the folk I know, that I am related to, that I have worked with, aren't as you describe.


: When my city (none / 0) (#34)
by Pancho on Fri Oct 26, 2007 at 01:29:04 PM EST

passed an resolution to seek 287(g) powers to expedite deportation for "violent felons", 3,000 people marched on city hall demanding that they rescind the resolution.
I have not mischaracterized anything. There are hundreds of illegal alien gangbangers in this small city and there are millions of dollars spent on bilingual education which is not good for anyone. I'll bet that your successful family members were taught in English. The State of Illinois decreed that we have to teach in the native language; they just don't pay for it.

You speak nonsense (none / 0) (#36)
by jimakaPPJ on Fri Oct 26, 2007 at 02:16:10 PM EST

and gibberish.

I said nothing about "effciency." I merely noted that you want to spend tax money taking care of non-citizens while ignoring citizens.

Any other spending has nothing to do with that simple fact.

As citizens, we are all in this together, or we are not.


Please stop (none / 0) (#37)
by tnthorpe on Fri Oct 26, 2007 at 02:36:14 PM EST

with the persistent mischaracterization of my position about undocumented immigrants.

I'm neither open borders nor closed. I favor reform that acknowldeges the deep and valuable connections between cultures, nations, people, employers, and workers. It's a globalized economy and our immigration law needs to support the people who live in it and work in it. Citizens here would be better off with serious reform and less Tancredo-style histrionics. Our present policy needs to accomodate the reality of workers from other countries working here, with their families. It's a simple matter of justice. Failing to do so simply pushes people into shadows. As Hannah Arendt argued, people have the right to rights. I've posted about this many times.

I'm not paralyzed by some fantasy of the homeland's security being undermined by our liaisons with Central America labor, and I have continually called for citizens here to demand that our elected representatives, Dem or Repub, do more than exploit the issue as a campaign talking point.

What is most distressing about your continual refrain about taxes is that you seem to imagine that the only connections we have with the undocumented is monetary. As if no sort of community outside the narrow bounds of citizenship obtained. You complain that they exploit US services, while I argue they are also exploited in turn. Clearly reform is needed to rationalize the crossborder traffic that will continue to exist, and in fact grow, in the future. My argument is that workers and families from Central America, and other places, belong here in a variety of capacities and we would do well to acknowledge that in law. As for the details, isn't that what gov't ought to be doing and is not?


You wrote: (none / 0) (#38)
by jimakaPPJ on Sat Oct 27, 2007 at 07:59:57 AM EST

I'm neither open borders nor closed.

If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck and walks like a duck... it's a duck.

Every position I have seen you favor is right out of the Open Borders mantra.

The issue isn't other nationalities working here. It is how they get here, and why the come.

They get here illegally. They come because their countries have deep seated problems. Their an economy that can not support them and a culture that does not endorse a safety net.

It is time to close the borders and quit being a safety valve for the countries involved. When the people can not leave, they will demand and get, change.

And yes. It is unfair to ask US citizens to suffer the consequences of the actions of the countries in question. And using tax dollars and resources on the illegal alien is doing exactly that.

The reforms you speak of, at the end of the day, are amnesty.

Close the borders. Then we can talk about "reform."


: Maybe you should (5.00 / 1) (#40)
by tnthorpe on Sat Oct 27, 2007 at 12:22:57 PM EST

take up bird watching, since you know what a duck is.
Your repetition of the open borders smear is as empty as it is predictable from you.
If your notion of human community is as you suggest, then it's the paucity of your moral imagination that you ought to be working on, not pouting that others don't share your constricted view.
Pick up some Hannah Arendt, On Totalitarianism would be a god place to start.

: Open Borders Mantra (1.00 / 0) (#39)
by squeaky on Sat Oct 27, 2007 at 12:03:18 PM EST

Every position I have seen you favor is right out of the Open Borders mantra.
That is utter BS ppj, but one of your typicall unsupported non-sequiturs. Open borders is a right wing fantasy and you know it. tnthorpe has not ever advocated that position, but Bush, and many Libertarians are for it. Malkin and all the right wing bedwetters scream about it as if it were some left wing program that actually exists. tnthorpe et al have never mentioned anything of the sort.

On this Fourth of July we celebrate this history more forthrightly than we have in two decades. Anti-immigrant hysteria peaked in 1996, when the California Republican Party self-destructed with anti-immigrant themes. Today the GOP is led by George W. Bush, who told campaign audiences "family values do not stop at the Rio Grande." The employer sanctions in the 1986 Simpson-Mazzoli bill are now recognized as windmill tilting. Congress has repeatedly raised the limits on H-1B visas for engineers and such, to 195,000 a year from an original 65,000. Last week the U.S. Supreme Court twice held that aliens are people too, entitled to such basic rights as the presumption of innocence, petty 1996 legislation notwithstanding....
Immigration now runs about a million a year against a population of 275 million, a rate that remains below the historical average. The proportion of immigrants with postgraduate education is three times the native rate. New immigrants are no longer eligible for welfare, removing that bugaboo. A study by the National Research Council in 1997 found that while unschooled immigrants are net recipients of taxpayer money in the first generation, their children repay these costs.
WSJ opinion

Be honest. (none / 0) (#23)
by jimakaPPJ on Fri Oct 26, 2007 at 07:49:37 AM EST

We are already doing that. You know that. Be honest.

What the Nightmare Act would do is provide amnesty, and the let them bring in additional family members.

BTW - Can you explain this?

Educating children is dangerous, just like providing health insurance to children is dangerous,

It makes zero sense to me.


Pancho is Banned (5.00 / 1) (#35)
by Jeralyn on Fri Oct 26, 2007 at 01:34:29 PM EST

for name calling. I just deleted another offensive comment he posted. I have tried to give him latitude but he is a chatterer who repeats the same points and he personally attacks other posters. Thus, he's banned.

What's the world coming to? (1.00 / 1) (#6)
by LonewackoDotCom on Wed Oct 24, 2007 at 09:09:49 PM EST

I can't believe this either.

If the Democratic Party can't, in effect, do the bidding of the Mexican government then what good are they?

Stop Whining (none / 0) (#1)
by elrapido on Wed Oct 24, 2007 at 05:10:54 PM EST

Judge Southwick is eminently qualified for the post. I hope you don't moan like this if Republicans remember the way Democrats handled themselves on nominations during President Bush's time in office.

: Given the GOP's handling of President Clinton's (none / 0) (#7)
by Molly Bloom on Thu Oct 25, 2007 at 07:27:59 AM EST

judicial appointees, I'd say worrying about whether or not

if Republicans remember the way Democrats handled themselves on nominations during President Bush's time in office.
is moot. The GOP will attack Democratic judicial appointees in any case, with or without provocation.

The Netroots failed miserably (none / 0) (#2)
by Geekesque on Wed Oct 24, 2007 at 05:32:13 PM EST

Tons of time and effort poured into getting Clinton and Obama to use more precise language on telecom immunity, not a peep beforehand on the DREAM Act and Southwick.

: We are all responsible (5.00 / 1) (#3)
by andgarden on Wed Oct 24, 2007 at 06:13:31 PM EST

for Southwick getting through. The DREAM act was probably never going to happen, given the composition of the Senate. I'm glad Durbin keeps trying though--he takes intense abuse for it.

The failure of the Dream Act is quite simple: (none / 0) (#8)
by Pancho on Thu Oct 25, 2007 at 09:05:20 AM EST

Everyone knows that this was a lot more than an amnesty for 200,000 kids; it was amnesty for all the ones that were just short of the 5 year period, or very short of it. It was also amnesty for all future illegals who manage to graduate high school here as well as all their family members. All the past sneakiness came home to roost and the bill was defeated. The conditions set forth in this bill would have NEVER been enforced and the citizens of this country knew that.

et al (none / 0) (#18)
by jimakaPPJ on Thu Oct 25, 2007 at 07:54:22 PM EST

Can anyone tell me?

How the claim that the person involved had been here 5 years?

And was actually under age 16??

And that the family they would bring in was actually family?

Inquiring minds want to know.

You will (none / 0) (#20)
by Pancho on Thu Oct 25, 2007 at 11:29:43 PM EST

never get an answer, because the truth will expose the fraud that the Dream act is.


: True (none / 0) (#22)
by jimakaPPJ on Fri Oct 26, 2007 at 07:42:54 AM EST

But by asking it, the lack of an answer.... is the answer.

great post (none / 0) (#31)
by tnthorpe on Fri Oct 26, 2007 at 12:50:11 PM EST

Sure is convincing. You whine about liberal rhetoric and this is what you have to offer. Shame on you! More xenophobic racial garbage, that's what it is, pure and simple.