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The Blue Dogs have been bellyaching about having to take a “tough vote” on immigration reform in advance of the 2010 election. Looks like they have a friend in the White House:
Hispanic lawmakers say an old adversary, White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, has his fingerprints all over a push to prohibit illegal immigrants from buying health insurance plans in a new market for people who don’t get insurance through their employers.
“A forensic study would show it all leads back to Rahm Emanuel and the White House,” said Illinois Democratic Rep. Luis Gutierrez, a member of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus who worked with Emanuel when the president’s top aide was in the House.
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Members of the CHC trace what they say is a harder White House line on immigrants to the night of South Carolina Republican Rep. Joe Wilson’s outburst during President Barack Obama’s address to a joint session of Congress in September.
I asked Kyle de Beausset of Citizen Orange, Dreamactivist, and promigrant.org, for his response:
Rahm Emanuel has done more violence to migrants in the name of political expediency than any other Democrat. If there is truth to the CHC allegations that Rahm Emanuel is behind a provision in Senate health care legislation that would ban unauthorized migrants from buying health insurance, then it appears Rahm Emanuel’s nativism has infected the White House, as well. It doesn’t make any moral, economic, public health, or political sense to ban unauthorized migrants from buying health insurance with their own money. I feared this sort of anti-migrant political maneuvering would occur when Barack Obama appointed Rahm Emanuel as his chief of staff. It appears that this confirms it.
The White House kicked the can down the road after Sotomayor’s confirmation and said they’d have an immigration bill by the end of the year, which Congress would take up in the new year.
I found this really hard to believe, and ran it past several members of Congress who laughed right in my face at the very idea. Since their entire world view is shaped by the upcoming 2010 election, they can’t imagine that anyone would even consider asking them to take immigration up. “They’ll understand,” they said.
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seems like this is a recurring title for posts. didn’t we have “Rahm Drives Dems Over the Cliff on Stimulus”? Rahm Dives Dems Over the Cliff on Healthcare”? Save it for a cut-and-paste “Rahm Dives Dems Over the Cliff on EFCA”. and on and on.
When is anybody (read Obama) gonna put a leash on this bum?
Remember this? “…I will be setting policy as president. I will be responsible for the vision that this team carries out, and I expect them to implement that vision once decisions are made.
So, as Harry Truman said, the buck will stop with me….”
President ORahma is getting exactly what he wants from those he empowered in his White House.
There are only two possible reasons for this sellout. The first is that we got took, that he is really a a DLC Conservadem. The second is the real politic, eleventy-dimensional chess argument. In either case, the challenge to the Left is the same. We need to stay united, organize and push for the best possible outcome on every issue, every day, with the best reality based, factual arguments possible.
A movement based on a cult of personality always ends up in tatters. (See Palin, Sarah) ORahma is not, has never been, and will never be a knight on a white horse coming to save us. That said, imagine where we’d be if the GOP had won the White House.
As Ted Kennedy said, the dream will never die. The work of implementing it will never end.
A dominant influence on my life was my maternal grandfather, Herman Small. He came here in the early 20th century, actually smuggled in, illegal immigrant…For a couple of years he moved into our house, he sold everything, and at the age of 72, he was going to immigrate to Israel, but it turned out he was an illegal immigrant in the United States, so he had no passport to leave the country.
Who Are You?, http://bigthink.com/ezekielemanuel, a minute in.
Hypocritical? The grandfather is no longer alive.