Posted on 06/13/2007 9:43:46 AM PDT by 3AngelaD
Senate conservatives have been warned by Republican leaders that they must either accept a series of largely symbolic floor votes on a handful of amendments to the immigration reform legislation or see themselves shut out of the process altogether when the chamber resumes work on the bill later this year, GOP lawmakers and aides said Tuesday...
“From the ashes of the USA, they plan build a North American Union.....”
BINGO!! I smell a deliberate meltdown coming....think consolidation of power like in the ‘30’s.....
“I’m thinking the exact thing. Its all about helping out Jeb.”
Guess Jeb’s thinking, “With friends like W, who needs enemies?” ‘cause this sure isn’t going to help Jeb. It can only hurt. Earlier, someone mentioned that W is stacking the deck with illegal hispanics to set up Jeb’s son for a big fat future in politics.
IMO, for someone to consciously sell America down the river, it must be related to blackmail, Satan, or both. (”Could it be... ... ... SATAN?”) There’s no LOGICAL explanation.
The good news is only 10 Republicans voted for the immigration bill - and we can vote OUT 10. Then, Bush is a lame duck - we'll get through this...
We track a lot more stock sales than that daily. We track billions in monetary transactions. We can track 500 million border transfers. That’s a little under 1.8 million a day.
There are companies with 100,000 employees who badge them in and out every single day of the year, and like to know where every employee is during the day in case there is an emergency. It can be done, you just have to have an ID that you can use to help track people, and a computer system set up to say whether you are IN or OUT.
Unfortunately, our country refuses to implement the “OUT” part of the computer program.
Just a thought, but there would be one advantage to seeing this bill leave the Senate and go to the House. We could then see where the House members stand. We need to see all the traitors expose themselves.
They were already shut out of the process...?
Another way to consider this comment is to assume it was intended as an insult. IOW; "you stupid conservatives can call here all day, and it doesn't matter, because we are still going to do what we want anyway"
Patronizing us with "okie dokie" and a pat on the head.
Alternatively:
She's tried to tell her supervisors this thing is going to be trouble, but since they won't listen, she has now gathered a substantial list of callers saying the same thing, so now she can show her boss that she has been correct all along.
Something like that.
PLEASE DISTRIBUTE TO EVERYONE ON YOUR EMAIL LIST
June 13, 2007
By John Stanton,
Roll Call Staff
Senate conservatives have been warned by Republican leaders that they must either accept a series of largely symbolic floor votes on a handful of amendments to the immigration reform legislation or see themselves shut out of the process altogether when the chamber resumes work on the bill later this year, GOP lawmakers and aides said Tuesday.
The warning came as President Bush met privately with Senate Republicans in an effort to restart immigration talks that stalled last week after a failed effort by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to end debate on the controversial measure.
Although Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Minority Whip Trent Lott (R-Miss.) and other leaders voted against several cloture motions late last week, they are pressing their Members to accept a deal under which Republicans could offer about a dozen amendments with a set time for debate.
But leadership also has made it clear that if conservatives do not agree to the deal, they run the risk of losing their seat at the negotiating table.
A senior GOP leadership aide confirmed that conservatives have been given the take-it-or-leave-it deal, saying lawmakers have been told they “need to get on board if they want to remain relevant.”
Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said conservatives are receiving “significant encouragement to get down to a list of 10 or 15 amendments on the Republican side.”
An aide to another conservative lawmaker complained the deal that GOP leadership is forcing on Republicans is unfair. “The implicit threat is that if you don’t go along with this, you won’t get a vote,” the aide said.
But even that offers little comfort to conservatives, since the votes’ outcomes are essentially a foregone conclusion.
Because the bipartisan group of Senators who have agreed to the “Grand Bargain” is expected to continue to vote as a bloc against any amendments that might derail the overall bill, the additional amendments that would be granted floor time are unlikely to pass.
Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), an opponent of the legislation, said that while having the ability to offer amendments would ease some of his unhappiness with the process, the predetermined fate of the amendments made it a hollow deal at best.
While “a couple of amendments have snuck through ... [it has been] a pretty orchestrated process,” Thune said, adding that “when you’ve got a small group screening the amendments, that’s a process that’s a little bit rigged from the start.”
Nevertheless, McConnell is under increasing pressure from many of his members and President Bush to break the deadlock so a bill can be moved out of the Senate.
Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho) said he already has told Senate GOP leaders he will not support the immigration filibuster any longer. “They’ve had ample opportunity,” Craig said of the Republican dissenters who successfully rallied a majority of their Conference to block the bill last week. Craig added that he supports McConnell’s efforts to goad the conservatives into capitulating, saying that over the years “when I was in a minority position I was given fair fun, but I was never given carte blanche to kill something.”
Craig said the president seemed receptive to the notion that an emergency supplemental spending bill should be used to fund the border enforcement provisions of the bill.
“Getting it right, in part, is funding what we’ve done,” said Craig, who said Americans are understandably nervous about whether the government actually will enforce immigration laws. “Our great challenge is to prove our credibility,” he said.
Though Craig said it was unlikely Bush’s appeal to Republicans today changed the minds of stalwart opponents, such as Sens. Jim DeMint (S.C.) and Jeff Sessions ( Ala. ), he said, “the president certainly did not hurt the situation today.”
Democratic aides said on Tuesday that it is unclear when immigration could return to the floor, though one leadership aide said it would not be before the end of the energy debate, which is expected to last two weeks.
Additionally, while conservatives said they believe passage of the bill is now inevitable, it also is unclear whether Reid and McConnell ultimately will be able to come to an agreement on floor time for the measure.
Cornyn noted that Reid already rejected a similar offer of 10 amendments on Thursday before he forced a second vote on bringing debate on the bill to a close.
“So I’m not sure how sincere [Reid’s] statement is that, if he gets that list, he’ll be willing to give those amendments votes and an adequate time to debate them,” Cornyn said.
"Ramnesty"
def: Ramming an unpopular amnesty bill down the throats of the unwilling people.
There is no advantage to be gained by this passing the Senate. Even if the House doesn’t pass it this time, it will still be sitting there, available for a vote, from now until the end of the 110th Congress. I think we have a pretty good idea of where the House stands, because Mrs. Pelosi has said she won’t bring up an immigration bill until the Republicans can guarantee 70 votes. So far all they’ve got on that side are 22, and it isn’t all that hard to figure out who they are. Members of the House are much more cautious because they have to run for re-election every other year. Better for everyone that this goes down in flames in the Senate so it can serve as an object lesson to them all.
bttt
Well, maybe the new party of conservatives will be better.
someone needs to warn these so-called GOP senate “leaders” that contributions to the 2008 RSCC are going to dry up harder and faster than the Mexican desert...no way I give the committee one $..I’ll send directly to those senators and candidates doing the right thing...I also think we really have to send a message..target ONE RINO up in 2008, ..like Graham....and work very hard to bring him down..I even know what I’d like to name the PAC...”The Remember Pat Toomey Society”
I guess you’re no longer in the Specter Fan Club.
Good. What is he saying about Bush, Lott, McCain and Kyl?
I remember a few years ago when Bush was pushing all of these socialist programs and Rush was running cover for him by saying "It's brilliant strategery - he is taking an issue away from the democrats - Bush is playing chess while everyone else is playing checkers". I hope those days of being a whitehouse apologist have ended.
Our biggest mistake was keeping the existing senate leadership when Newt (and Clinton) engineered the GOP takeover in 1994.
The house republicans and many GOP senators were chomping at the bit to reform government but Lott and Dole seemed to always be in the way. I wanted Phil Graham to be the senate majority leader.
Now we're stuck with this clowns.
bttt
That isn't really accurate. Many of the GOP senators that voted against cloture are the bill's biggest cheerleaders. Both Georgia senators voted against it but they are pushing it hard.
The conservatives are far outnumbered. It's not the RINOs from the blue states that are the problem - we know what they are and considering how blue some of the states are they represent, they are the best we can hope for.
No, the problem is the GOP senate leadership from red states - Lott, McCain, Kyl, Chambliss (GA), Isaakson (GA), Graham, etc.
There is no excuse for conservative states such as Georgia, South Carolina and Mississippi to have some twisted senators.
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