If you've been frustrated by the profound meaninglessness of the just-finished Beltway battle over the fiscal bluff, and its followup fake debt-ceiling "crisis" this March, take heart: The next really big fight shaping up this spring and summer will at least be over something genuinely consequential -- comprehensive immigration reform.

An Obama administration official said the president plans to push for immigration reform this January. The official, who spoke about legislative plans only on condition of anonymity, said that coming standoffs over deficit reduction are unlikely to drain momentum from other priorities. The White House plans to push forward quickly, not just on immigration reform but gun control laws as well.

... It remains unclear what type of immigration policies the White House plans to push in January, but turning them into law could be a long process. Aides expect it will take about two months to write a bipartisan bill, then another few months before it goes up for a vote, possibly in June. A bipartisan group of senators are already working on a deal, although they are still in the early stages. Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) will likely lead on the Democratic side in the House. While many Republicans have expressed interest in piecemeal reform, it's still unclear which of them plan to join the push.

Lofgren expressed hope that immigration reform would be able to get past partisan gridlock, arguing that the election was seen as something of a mandate for fixing the immigration system and Republicans won't be able to forget their post-election promises to work on a bill. "In the end, immigration reform is going to depend very much on whether Speaker [John] Boehner wants to do it or not," Lofgren said.

Indeed. No doubt any bill that has a chance of passing the House will be larded with all kinds of punitive, enforcement-heavy measures, emphasizing "border security" even beyond the extreme measures that have been instituted in the past decade, that will be insisted upon by conservatives of all stripes, Republican and Democrat alike.

But Republicans in particular are having to face the hard realities of demographic change in the USA, having just had their hats handed to them by Latino voters in the last election -- due punishment for the party's disgusting embrace of the naked nativist faction that now is embodied in the Tea Party. Boehner and Co. may not want to deal with the issue, but cold reality is almost certainly going to compel them to act in a quasi-reasonable fashion.

As America's Voice observed after the election:

The demographic writing on the wall says that Republicans must be more pro-immigrant and willing to reach out to Latino voters. The 2012 election results have sparked a frenzy of Republican and conservative soul-searching about how they can avoid a repeat of the 2012 election cycle for future national elections. One of the most universal acknowledgements is that the Republican Party must do better among the rapidly-growing Latino voter population and, concurrently, that the Party must change its dominant, hardline immigration stance. As Republican strategist Ana Navarro tweeted, “Mitt Romney self-deported himself from the White House.”

Twenty percent of Latinos would be willing to vote Republican if the GOP had more tolerant positions on immigration. That extra 20% would put Republicans in reach of regaining the White House. One-in-five Latinos voted for President Obama in 2012 but said that they would be open to voting for Republicans if the Party leads on immigration. Combining this subset of Obama voters with the 23% of Latinos who voted for Mitt Romney, a pro-immigration reform Republican Party would be poised to again achieve the 40% threshold of Latino support that George W. Bush received in 2004 and many analysts say the GOP will need going forward to remain a nationally competitive party, especially as demographic trends accelerate for the 2014 and 2016 elections.

The GOP’s demographic problems will only get worse from here. Noting the long-term implications of the Republican Party’s “Latino problem,” former Senator Norm Coleman (R-MN) noted that the 2012 elections were, “a clarion call that we have to [respond to]. Soon we are going to have to start worrying about Texas and Arizona. Unless we step up, we are going to be the minority party.” Similarly, newly-elected Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) told Ryan Lizza of the New Yorker, “If Texas is bright blue, you can’t get to two-seventy electoral votes. The Republican Party would cease to exist. We would become like the Whig Party.”

Progressive Democrats will be entering this debate from a position of strength, especially given the American public's eagerness to resolve the immigration mess. Yes, Republicans will make the most noise and will pout and make faces, but progressives have the upper hand, and should act accordingly.

So what should progressive Democrats expect in any immigration-reform legislation? Obviously, at some point things will be diluted in the process of negotiation. But instead of taking the standard Obama approach to negotiations -- which has been to dilute everything down by negotiating with our own side first, then making that the starting point in negotiations with Republicans -- it's time to take an aggressively progressive approach and insist first on progressive legislation, which is to say, lawmaking that will actually work to solve the problem.

What does a progressive agenda on immigration look like? Something like this:

• An earned path to citizenship for all undocumented immigrants currently in the country who wish to remain -- and a guest-worker program for those who just want to work and return home.
• Modest, appropriate penalties for those currently here illegally, plus requirements to study English, pay taxes, and otherwise get right with the law.
• Make obtaining citizenship a rational process, free of unnecessary red tape and bureaucratic hurdles.
• Create a guest-worker program that ensures participants’ full constitutional rights, including the right to organize, while enabling the distribution of labor, both skilled and unskilled, to those industries where it is needed.
• Discard the current system's longstanding phobia regarding "chain migration", instead emphasizing the value of family ties when considering admission and work visas.
• Undertake a complete overhaul of immigration-quota system, so that immigrants are admitted on the basis of economic needs and are not based on nations of origin.

Continue reading »

DOWNLOADS: (140)

PLAYS: (1091)

Embed

Rather than deal with accusations that their own Steven Crowder deliberately provoked an altercation with Michigan labor unions and then hyped a questionably edited video as proof of their “thuggery,” Fox News pretended that the big issue surrounding the demonstrations over the so-called “right to work legislation” is left-wing violence and President Obama’s failure to condemn it.

As I posted on News Hounds, Crowder’s behavior in the wake of his confrontation with union activists has been bizarre, coy and downright suspicious. Last night, Crowder did not deny shoving to the ground the protester who later punched him.

As John Amato wrote in a recent post,

Guys like Crowder have been with us forever. They rooted for the strikebreakers in the 1920s and '30s, and they delighted in going to civil-rights protests in the South in the '60s and pouring sugar on lunch-counter protesters. They aided and abetted the worst of American politics then, and now, with their provocations… Remember Kenneth Gladney?

The big difference in this case, though, is that unlike Gladney, Crowder is on the Fox News payroll. And even Steve Doocy gave a hint that Crowder’s credibility was less-than-ironclad when he said on Fox & Friends this morning that the anti-union Americans For Prosperity tent was torn down, “looks like by a bunch of pro-union guys.” He almost surely knew, but didn't say, that this is in dispute.

Enter Michelle Malkin. She had nothing but praise for the “brave” Breitbart activists like Crowder. Nobody mentioned how much of Breitbart's “citizen journalism” has been discredited.

So many of these activists were inspired by the spirit of Andrew Breitbart. And it’s because of their commitment to citizen journalism that you can watch this video, that (union “thugs”) been exposed. Very brave. And how dare these feckless cowards who were mobbing and storming this tent do this? Particularly when there were so many women in the tent? What does that tell you about the manhood of these union activists who did such a thing?

There’s not an apology from a single one of them and we haven’t heard a word from President Obama. How come he’s not calling up these women who were… subjected to this? He could call Sandra Fluke up? He could have beer summits with Harvard professors who, um, concoct racism where it doesn’t exist? But when it comes to defending people who are subjected to such incivility? Nothing from this White House. Nothing from this administration.

Of course, I don’t recall an apology from a single Fox News host when it turned out that Breitbart’s ACORN videos were a sham after ACORN lost its federal funding. In fact, Fox host Megyn Kelly slobbered so much over Breitbart’s undercover “prostitute,” Hannah Giles, I half expected Kelly to stand up and demand Giles be awarded a Pulitzer Prize.

Even now, not one of the three Curvy Couch denizens voiced a reason to withhold judgment on what had happened. Nor did anyone add any larger context to the picture, such as the police brutality that occurred against the pro-union side. I don’t hear any complaints on Fox that Obama hasn’t spoken out against that.

Instead, Carlson piled on by suggesting that Obama doesn’t care about violence against people he disagrees with:

That should come as no surprise, I guess, because… these people in the tent don’t agree with what the president had just said in Michigan the day before which was that he was hoping that Governor Rick Snyder would veto that right to work.

Carlson later went on to falsely assert that “voters actually wanted” Michigan's anti-union legislation.

Meanwhile, Fox News producers echoed Malkin with a banner on the screen “asking,” Why is President silent on union violence?

DOWNLOADS: (210)

PLAYS: (815)

Embed

With controversy and protests swirling around Michigan’s anti-union legislation, Governor Rick Snyder paid a visit to Fox & Friends this morning where he surely knew he’d receive a friendly welcome. But the Curvy Couch Crew went beyond “hospitable” to outright approval. They also accepted without question his repeated assertions that the legislation – which he previously said was “not on his agenda” – is now “all about being pro worker.” Even more laughably, he pretended the legislation is not anti union.

Snyder said, with a straight face:

I actually don’t view this as anti-union, because it really gives the unions an opportunity to better present their value case. And if people see value, they should join and if they don’t, why should their resources go there?

Steve Doocy nodded along enthusiastically. Gretchen Carlson used the opportunity to take a shot at teachers and their union for taking the day off to go protest.

DOWNLOADS: (136)

PLAYS: (956)

Embed

Fox News blatantly conflated the anti-union legislation just rammed through the Michigan legislature - and now facing massive protests - with the case of 13 Detroit autoworkers who were just reinstated after being caught drinking and getting high on the job. Without bothering to do any research into why an arbitrator found the workers should be reinstated, Fox & Friends this morning suggested that unionized auto workers are a bunch of boozers and stoners with cushy contracts that prevent them from getting fired no matter what.

After discussing President Obama’s objections to the right-to-work legislation, Steve Doocy brought up the reinstated workers. You may recall that the story of the autoworkers was originally broken by local Fox reporters following them to a park during their break. Fox just happened to develop an interest in the workers’ behavior not long after the auto bailout.

Guest host Eric Bolling started the demonizing. “Probably any other job on the planet, if you were caught in the parking lot drinking… or smoking pot… you’d be fired in the afternoon. …Forget buying the car, how’d you like to be driving your kids to school in the car that was built that afternoon after those guys were smoking pot and drinking the beer? …That’s why it’s so bad. Because it’s so hard to fire these people.”

Guest Laura Ingraham agreed. “Next time, like something falls off your Chrysler, like your steering wheel cover kind of slips off? Well, now we know why.” She started laughing.

Doocy chimed in, “It was made after lunch.”

Ingraham continued, “Stuff… knobs always fall off because, oh man, ‘Let’s get another nickel bag before I go back to work.’ It’s ridiculous.”

Gretchen Carlson said, “It speaks to the power of the union. You know, it really does. And whatever they had in the language of the contract, the arbitrator sided with them. So they must have this sort of iron-clad language.”

Apparently, that “iron-clad language” is that sufficient and conclusive evidence is needed before a worker can be fired. But Carlson made it sound as though enforcing a contract that protects workers is a bad thing.

There was also the unmistakeable suggestion that only union workers get high on the job and avoid getting fired. As though the two go hand in hand and the union is to blame for the entire thing.

Ingraham added, “Maybe Chrysler will rue the day" that they were "so lax and tolerant of, you know, union power.”

DOWNLOADS: (134)

PLAYS: (724)

Embed

I suppose it all depends on what you mean by wealthy. Still, sounds like Obama is semi-solid on ending those upper-class tax cuts, which is better than nothing but not enough:

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama promised liberal groups on Tuesday that the Bush tax cuts will end for the nation's wealthiest, according to a statement from the progressive group MoveOn.

"MoveOn’s 7 million members will be pleased to know that President Obama today strongly reiterated his steadfast commitment to ensuring that the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest 2 percent finally end December 31—and to protecting the middle class in the process," said the group's political action executive director Justin Ruben after meeting with Obama at the White House.

In his daily briefing, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney rejected the GOP's approach to raise revenues by cutting loopholes and deductions from the tax code, saying raising taxes on the rich was non-negotiable for Obama.

But Carney did not say whether Obama would stand by his "wealthy" cutoff line at $200,000 for individuals or $250,000 for families — a response to disagreement among Democrats over where to raise taxes and where to keep the rates the same or lower. Sen. Chuck Schumer has proposed raising the threshold to $500,000 or even $1 million.

The president "is not wedded to every detail of that plan," Carney said, when asked about the income levels. "I'm not going to negotiate hypothetical details."

No one's really saying much about Medicare and Social Security, but I got emails late yesterday afternoon from several of the organizations whose representatives attended the meeting, asking people to get ready for a fight:

Labor and progressive leaders who met with President Obama Tuesday drew a line in the sand on taxes, unemployment insurance, and entitlements—all of which are subject to change under the looming fiscal cliff deadline.

The meeting was the first of three the president will hold on the topic this week. He will meet with business leaders Wednesday and Congressional leaders Friday.

Richard Trumka, president of AFL-CIO said the meeting was "very positive," and that the president reiterated his position on preserving tax breaks for the middle class and seeing that the wealthy pay more.

One point of conflict between labor leaders and the White House may arise if the president offers to raise the eligibility age for Medicare as leverage to reach a deal. Trumka made no indication that the two sides made any progress on negotiating the issue during their one-hour meeting.

Matt Bai says it's too late:

Liberal activists will tell the president that things are very different now. He’s won a mandate, they will say, and that means he doesn’t need to compromise.

But while Mr. Obama can probably claim some vindication on the need to make the tax code more equitable, it would be a stretch to say that the voters demanded that he hold the line against entitlement cuts as part of a broader deal. The possible terms of a grand bargain hardly ever came up during the campaign, because neither side wanted to talk about it.

Mr. Obama may have more leverage now than he did in 2011 to put a hard limit on the scale of entitlement cuts, but it’s unthinkable that he could reach a comprehensive deal — something he still badly wants to do — without at least accepting the terms he found acceptable the first time around. That’s how negotiations work.

So while it may be good strategy for progressive groups to pressure the White House on entitlement spending, no one should harbor the illusion that the president won’t sign off on reductions. The simple fact is, he already has.

If you want a classic example of the way Establishment Democrats are perfectly tone-deaf when it comes to the concerns of the working families they like to flatter themselves as representing, take a look at how the race in Washington's brand-spanking-new First District is shaping up, particularly on the Democratic side.

Because instead of backing Darcy Burner, the progressive candidate with far and away the greatest name recognition and a record of working for working-class families and their interests -- particularly when it comes to things like protecting Medicare and Social Security, and getting their children out of war zones -- the state's establishment Dems seem to be lining up behind Susan DelBene, a pro-business faux-progressive Dem with little popular support but very deep pockets.

Evidently, it's all about the money. In a year when Democrats should be listening to the anger of their constituents at the failure of Washington politicians to take care of the interests of ordinary people, these dimbulbs are going back to politics as usual and backing the candidate with the deepest pockets, not the deepest support among voters.

On the Republican side, Tea Party nutter John Koster is running largely unopposed and leads in early polling -- largely because it's a six-way race on the Democratic side right now. Things will be different in the fall, when his far-right record and rhetoric will come front and center.

A weekend Seattle Times story laid out the contours:

The Democratic establishment is coalescing behind Suzan DelBene, a former Microsoft vice president who largely self-funded her losing 2010 campaign against U.S. Rep. Dave Reichert, R-Auburn, who represents the 8th District.

But in this year of economic anxiety and the noise surrounding the Occupy movement, DelBene's opponents are taking jabs at her wealth, to appeal to struggling families.

As Darcy Burner, a progressive activist who twice lost to Reichert, says: "There's already an overrepresentation of the 1 percent in Washington, D.C."

You may notice something important missing from this story. There's plenty here touting DelBene's candidacy, for instance, but nothing telling readers how the candidates actually stack up in terms of support:

DelBene's résumé looms largest. She was appointed Gov. Chris Gregoire's Department of Revenue director after an executive career at Microsoft and Drugstore.com, among others. She and her husband, Kurt, a Microsoft president, live in a $4.8 million Lake Washington waterfront home and said she would, like last time, put her own money into her campaign.

"We talk about the American dream, yet we're in a place where we're making it harder and harder. I don't know if I would be able to tell my same story if I were growing up today," she said.

In an apparent effort to trim the field, Gregoire and Larsen endorsed DelBene, as did the state Washington State Labor Council.

Continue reading »

Mitt Romney is struggling mightily in the primary fight in Michigan, which all the pundits assume would be a cakewalk for him. Being both a native son and the actual son of a popular governor, the conventional wisdom was that he'd lock up the win fairly easily.

But that's before Mitt Romney opened his mouth.

In a state where unemployment rates have run consistently higher than the national average over the last ten years, suffering from outsourcing in the automotive industry and the economy commensurately imploding, there is no geographic or genetic claim that could immunize Romney from such anti-populist rhetoric as

"Corporations are people, my friends"
"Let Detroit go bankrupt"
“I’ve taken on union bosses before, and I’m happy to take them on again. I sure won’t give into the UAW.”

In the premiere episode of her eponymous show, Melissa Harris-Perry shows some hard facts to dispute: when union workers do well, all workers do better.

Welcome, Melissa, to my weekend viewing fold. But I don't know that the native son of Michigan can look past his own privileged upbringing to see that what he advocates is bringing all Americans down.

After attacking public union workers and passing draconian and very controversial new laws in Ohio and Wisconsin that vilified public workers as an albatross around the necks of their states, both Walker and Kasich are pretending as if nothing happened at all, and now are hypocritically thanking those same public workers.

Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R) and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) have decided to pay tribute to state workers.

In Ohio, Kasich declared this week "Public Service Appreciation Week" on Monday. The same day, Walker announced a new public employee "recognition" program in Wisconsin. Given their high-profile battles with unions and state employees, plenty of people in the two states are wondering whether the olive branches are some kind of joke.

When "honoring Ohio's thousands of public employees," Kasich asked his fellow Ohioans to "reflect on all that our public employees do in our communities, and thank them for the invaluable work they do each day." During his first four months in office, Kasich has made rolling back the collective bargaining rights of public workers a centerpiece of his administration's agenda.

In response to the declaration, Ohio House Minority Leader Armond Budish (D) said in a statement that he had to "check my calendar" to make sure it wasn't April Fool's Day. He continued: "Do you thank teachers and firefighters for the invaluable work before or after you slash their wages and benefits?"

Now that we've screwed you, we will thank you. Workers are shocked by the chutzpah of these moves, and Wisconsinites are responding in kind:

The Wisconsin Capital Times reports that today a group of state employees are rallying outside the Capitol to instead recognize "State Employee Depreciation Day."

DOWNLOADS: (1974)

PLAYS: (2692)

Embed

The NFL was forced to open their doors as Judge Susan Nelson ruled twice that their lock out of the players was out of order. Making billions of dollars in profits was not enough for the greedy owners so they decided to plot and plan to take it away from the players by opting out of their labor deal and then tried to use billions of network money to wait out the players. Doesn't it remind you of typical tea party corporate and political behavior? All unions are being attacked from all sides. Roger Goodell, who was hired by the owners to be their Commissioner has also been used as a very vocal tool to attack the players instead of remaining an impartial voice. Here's his WSJ op-ed which spins the facts and attacks the players union.

Rather than address the challenge of improving the collective-bargaining agreement for the benefit of the game, the union-financed lawsuit attacks virtually every aspect of the current system including the draft, the salary cap and free-agency rules, which collectively have been responsible for the quality and popularity of the game for nearly two decades. A union victory threatens to overturn the carefully constructed system of competitive balance that makes NFL games and championship races so unpredictable and exciting.

The deal that the owners opted out of was working fine for both sides as football is more popular and profitable than ever, but suddenly it's the union that wants to destroy football.

Nate Jackson responded to Goodell on Dead Spin:

This PR push by the NFL — a response to DeMaurice Smith's recent public attempts to shed light on what a typical career is like for an NFL athlete — is confusing to a former player like me: confusing, disingenuous, and ignorant. Confusing because it implies that the average NFL career, the average professional football existence, is comparable to the anomalous careers of Pro Bowlers and first-round draft picks. Disingenuous because it comes at a time when Goodell purports to care profoundly about the health of his players. Ignorant because it dismisses the thousands of athletes who sacrifice their minds and their bodies for a sport that keeps them hanging by a thread for years, shuffling them in and out of training camps and practice squads and never paying them full value for their services.

In other labor disputes, the commissioner has usually not been involved. During the lock out, players didn't hide their feelings about him. Good for the fans to recognize the hackery of Goodell and when he took the stage to start the draft he was booed by the Radio City crowd.

Let's see: There were so many union supporters that Sarah Palin was drowned out at this Madison rally yesterday, yet the AP just can't estimate how many of the thousands of people who attended were supporting unions. Here's a clue, guys: They're not the ones with the misspelled signs:

Capitol Police estimated about 6,500 people converged on the building Saturday, but said it was impossible to tell how many were tea partyers and how many were labor supporters.

Tea party activists are a loose coalition of community groups largely made up of people with conservative views who believe government has grown too large. They take their name from a 1773 protest in which activists in the then-British colonies in America boarded ships and dumped their cargo of English tea into Boston harbor.

"Loose coalition of community groups." Nothing about Dick Armey or the Koch brothers' money that's funding this, not even a mention of where these demonstrators came from -- and who paid for their buses. Even though the media always makes a point of saying unions bused in their members!

The tea partyers appeared clustered in front of the building, waving "Don't Tread on Me" flags and signs that read "Public workers — the party is over," ''Thank you, Scott," and "Tax and spend brings the end."

Counter-protesters surrounded them, banging drums, bellowing into bullhorns and ringing bells. Bitter arguments broke out along the edges of the two groups over everything from the size of government to corporate power. At one point conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart took the stage and told the labor supporters to "go to hell."

"I'm serious!" he screamed. "Go to hell! You're trying to divide America!"

Carl Jung, genius. Talk about projection, eh?

Palin told the tea party rally that Walker is working to solve Wisconsin's long-term budget problems so it can honor pension commitments to public workers.

"This is where the line has been drawn in the sand and I'm glad to stand with you in solidarity," Palin said.

Oh, Mrs. Palin. Are you simply woefully misinformed, or shamelessly cynical? (I'm going with the latter.) Wisconsin's public pension fund is fully funded.

Just keep shifting the goalposts. That's why you get all that money, after all.

Oh, and by the way, Proud Defenders of the Constitution: Gov. Scott Walker plans to get rid of any elected officials he wants, just like the Republican governor of Michigan did. Freedom!