Letters to the Editor
thorin01
Published Letters: 197 Editor's Choice: 30
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Immigration Reform Will Cost the Democrats Congress
[Read the article: Hitting a wall on immigration]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Walter is right in saying that long term trends are for more Hispanic voters and that many of them are going to the Democratic Party but he is wrong when he says it will hurt Republicans in 2008. Short term trends on Immigration all favor the Republicans.
This is a passionate issue for core Republicans, one they vote on. Where as for Democrats it is a very messy and ambiguous one (look at the above letter from self-identified Liberals and Democrats). This is not a short term winner for Democrats (possibly not a long term one either, but that’s another discussion).
Here’s what’s going to happen in the Immigration bill is passed in 2007. All those swing and red States that went Democratic (just barely) in 2006 will be handed a perfect wedge issue for Republicans in 2008. Think about it, the Democrats picked up congress almost entirely on the strength of anti-war opposition. But they won’t be facing pro-war/pro-Bush Republicans in those states this time around. They’ll be facing freshman candidates who will stress they never voted for the war (negating the issue) and then pounding the crap out of immigration bringing their base out in force and leaving Democrats divided.
The Republicans retake Congress in 2008 on the strength of ‘close the border’ and anti-immigration rhetoric.
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Yep – Immigration Will Kill the Dems in 08
[Read the article: Hitting a wall on immigration]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The more I read this thread and read all the self described liberals and Democrats who oppose this bill the more convinced I am that passage guarantees Republicans take back congress in 2008.
With Senator Luger and others providing rhetorical cover for Republicans to openly criticize the Iraq war (and with many new Republicans running who won’t be burden by pro-war votes) the Iraq war issue will be largely neutralized in the swing and red states that Dems only barely carried in 2006. Making immigration the key wedge issue for voters in those states.
Add to that its looking increasingly if immigration reform passes it will the ONLY major legislative item the Dems pass before the 2008 elections freeze everything else out. Which will mean the Dems will have failed in the one major item they were supposed to achieve, namely ending Bush’s war.
So many progressives will be turned off by the failure to achieve the anti-war aims and will be either indifferent or ticked off that only thing a Democratic congress managed to achieve was passage of a pro-business anti-worker immigration bill.
Republicans will be energized and Democrats demoralized.
You have to give the Democratic leadership credit. It’s looking more and more like they’re going to find a way to actually lose an election that they should be able to win just by showing up.
That takes real talent.
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Rhetorical Shift Only
[Read the article: Will Lugar start GOP antiwar surge?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]When push comes to shove the Republicans will vote to ‘support our troops in the field’ with funding and ‘not tie the General’s hands’ with timetables. A rhetorical trick Greenwald has documented quite well and most of the Democratic leadership has fully bought into.
What Senator Lugar and others are providing is rhetorical cover for Republican’s in 2008. Particularly for new candidates in the swing and red states Republicans lost in 2006. Unburdened by an actual vote these candidates will be able to criticize the war thus neutralizing the issue. Especially in light of Democrats utter inability to actually accomplish anything beyond empty promises in dealing with Iraq.
Thus freed from Iraq Republican congressional candidates will pound on wedge issues (immigration being the biggest) energizing their base and retaking the congress in 2008.
Republicans might even widen their pre-2006 majority in the house in blue states where progressives, demoralized by an ineffective Democratic leadership and passage of a pro-business anti-worker immigration bill as the only major accomplishment of their term in congress, stay home.
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Expanded Power = Expanded Abuse
[Read the article: How did the Bush administration use its secret eavesdropping powers?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Given recent revelations about how the FBI has been abusing their expanded powers under the Patriot Act it should be a default assumption that CIA and NSA are abusing their newly granted powers as well.
The only proof we have that the CIA is not abusing this authority is the Administrations claim of ‘Trust us.’ Who the hell is dumb enough to believe that?!? (Around 30 percent of the country according to the polls) Given the level of incompetence and deception demonstrated by Katrina, the Passport mess, Iraq and on and on it’s a given that warrantless is wiretapping is being abused and misused.
In addition I have yet to hear a single argument for why FISA (a rubber-stamp court anyway) was a bad thing for intelligence gathering.
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Good-Bye Habeas Corpus
[Read the article: Supreme Court switches gears on Guantánamo]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Forget new filings by lawyers, what triggered the Courts decision to review this case was the Appeals Court decision bitch slapping Bush over the lack of Habeus Corpus and declaring his actions unconstitutional.
This Court is about to reverse that decision in the harshest possible way.
I’m afraid I must echo many others fears about what the Court will do to Habeas Corpus.
Every Democrat who voted for Bush in 2004 out of fear of terrorists is responsible for the next 20 years worth decisions handed down by a conservative Supreme Court. Add to that the starkly conservation nature of Bush’s appointments to the Federal Bench and we’re looking at a very ugly time for many constitutional rights and protections we’ve grown to enjoy over the last 200 hundred years.
You thought the ‘War on Drugs’ brought little more than an erosion of civil rights we haven’t yet gotten to the bottom of the ‘War on Terror’ will do to us.