Those of you who have followed my posts know that I feel the Republican party abandoned its ideals and its core values long ago in favor of a corporatist aggrandizement of the Bush Family (and its most dimwitted member) and the neoconservative vision of Pax Americana.
But what is more troubling is how the Democratic leadership fails to seize the obvious moment and win victories from obvious failures that the bottom feeders in my party open up to them.
You guys need to learn to play hard ball and to hire some political operatives who aren't just plain stupid.
I mean, I see this immigration thing playing out just as it was explained in one of Grover Norquists regular meetings last Fall. And you guys are falling for it. Falling all over yourselves, in fact.
Why not break out and pursue some of the agenda below the fold? Why not represent the people again? Or is that like something out of Jerry Maguire?
See the agenda below the fold.
1. Propose a Windfall Profits Tax on "Big Oil" profits to fund a dedicated port security fund to pay for 100% of all port containers to be scanned for security.
Watch the oil-belt GOP run for cover when this hits the clerk's bill hopper. It will be like dropping a hand grenade into a bucket of overpriced hi-test. It won't go anywhere, of course -- not in a Republican Congress. But just watch the public reaction when "the party of security" tries to kill it on behalf of their contributor base.
And there's a certain symmetry to it, too: we're fighting "terrorists" so that Exxon-Mobil will have a safe place to drill for oil...why shouldn't they pay part of the fare for protecting us?
2. Before passing any new legislation on immigration, demand that the Bush Administration enforce existing law.
Any personnel director at any medium sized company knows that new workers require an I-9. Most know that they're being hoodwinked with forged documents. They also know that they'll never be asked to produce the I-9's anyway, so that the whole thing is a joke.
The IRS maintains a matching program that it uses for 1099 reporting. It matches the first 40 characters of your name with your Social Security Number. http://www.irs.gov/...
Its a very simple technical fix to create a telephonic response line so that employers would know whether a Social Security Number is "legal" and that the worker was a legal employee. And the IRS could forward the employer the "last known address" and current / former employer to assure that there is no duplication or dealing of valid SSN's. This could all be done administratively through the employment regulations, without so much as a quorum call of Congress.
Demand that John Snow's Treasury get it done before any other legislation is taken up in Congress.. Then, watch them squirm as they ponder the notion of imposing fines under existing law on their contributor base AND drying up their contributors' major source of cheap labor.
Those are just two things the Democratic leadership should be hammering the (once) Grand Old Party about.
But y'all are stragely silent...could it be that you are owned by the same interests as us?