I basically disagree.
This was the Rubican for this issue.
While I wouldn't call it 100% no possibillity of stopping, it is actually very close to that with today's vote. I believe this because of the manner in which this has come forward.
Open ended debate in the Senate is the tradition. A minority can stonewall a misguided program for years in that body and it was even set up with those features, unlike the House.
Cloture, to limit debate, is the tactic to steam-roller an item through.
Reflect that we have senior Senators on the Republican side, some even conservative by history, who have helped broker this deal and will vote with the Democrats. The Democrats will make sure that enough of their members vote for the bill to stop a 51% majority from happening and Bush sees this as his redeeming legacy so he will sign it.
With the 700 to 800 pages of trash in this, open debate and amendment would have never have made possible the passage because Senators would have tired of being put on the public record for the various issues of the evil innovative legislation. Cloture, ends amendments, ends debate, makes Reed the one to shepard enough Democrat votes that this will be the Republican / Bush Adminstration Immigration Reform Bill forever in the public mind.
For years the Democrats will fund welfare, healthcare and all sorts of entitlement increases to pay for the Bush Plan.
Today is certainly right up there with Chamberlain's return from Munich announcing "Peace in our time."
As the ruin of immigration policies for twenty years are already about us, the bill serves to only cement the disaster in place and the mess will be called catastrophic within ten weeks of its passage. I will try and post the NYT headline that lays that out and ping you when it happens -- but it will be termed a disaster by the national media before the conventions -- BOOK IT.
I agree with everything you've mentioned.
A few weeks ago some Texas reporter was interviewing illegals just after they'd crossed the border. One guy said he was very anxious to get himself a job because he wanted to get in on Amnesty.
That he was more than six months over the presence deadline for eligibility didn't bother him (apparently even the pre-illegals in Mexico have this irksome problem all worked out).
What really bothered him, he said, was that the trains and buses heading from the south of the country up to the U.S. border were packed, and tickets were becoming expensive.
He was determined to get to America first and to get a job before the millions behind him, because when they get to the U.S. "all the jobs will be taken".
Prepare for an even greater invasion beginning the moment George Bush signs his monstrosity.