You Have to Give It to the President

[mystery-ak]

http://www.nationalreview.com/node/393188/print

 NATIONAL REVIEW ONLINE         

November 20, 2014 10:26 PM
You Have to Give It to the President
By Daniel Foster

It’s a brilliant, brutally cynical near-term gambit. He delayed action until after the election, he even told everybody he was doing it! And then he completely screwed over the incoming Republican majority, making their lame-duck and first 100 days a complete pain-in-the-ass, while shoring up support among his progressive doubters who, if you watched MSNBC tonight, are back to 2008 levels of adoration.

Still, what are the Republicans going to do? Impeach him? There’s a smart-ish strategy that involves funding the rest of the government while denying DHS the funds to enforce His Majesty’s edict. But when POTUS vetoes it, what will they do then? Most likely John Boehner and Mitch McConnell will seek some face-saving move that has the effect of letting “prosecutorial discretion” proceed apace. It might be an enforcement-first measure that doesn’t require the president to actually reverse course on amnesty. Or, hey, maybe somebody will sue him, but the chief political virtue of that move is that it stretches out the proceedings along a long enough timeline that they can move on to other things, pick their next battle.

And then what is president Scotto Christpence going to do, pray tell? Inform the 5 million illegals POTUS just encouraged to look for retirement properties that there is a target on their backs, again? The politics of telling people who have been pardoned, en masse, that they are criminals once more is not the same as the politics of opposing their pardon in the first place. Maybe I’m being pessimistic, but this doesn’t strike me as a bell that can be unrung.

If there is a way out for the Republicans, it will have to be on the back of widespread public disapproval of this move, and the resultant flight of moderate Democrats (how many are left?) from it. We’ll see if that materializes. If it does, it will mean remobilizing the constituencies who just came out to vote GOP two weeks ago. No easy lift. And based on the instant reaction of the mainstream media, they sure as hell aren’t going to help.

What am I missing?

[GourmetDan]

It’s a brilliant, brutally cynical near-term gambit. He delayed action until after the election, he even told everybody he was doing it! And then he completely screwed over the incoming Republican majority, making their lame-duck and first 100 days a complete pain-in-the-ass, while shoring up support among his progressive doubters who, if you watched MSNBC tonight, are back to 2008 levels of adoration.

It's only 'brilliant' if the media supports your dishonesty... it's a 'disaster' if the media exposes your dishonesty...

The MSM... telling people how to interpret events for at least 50 years...

[Bigun]

It's only 'brilliant' if the media supports your dishonesty... it's a 'disaster' if the media exposes your dishonesty...

The MSM... telling people how to interpret events for at least 50 years...

50 years? You've GOT to be joking!  Try 150 years!


One night, probably in 1880, John Swinton, then the preeminent New York journalist, was the guest of honor at a banquet given him by the leaders of his craft. Someone who knew neither the press nor Swinton offered a toast to the independent press. Swinton outraged his colleagues by replying:

"There is no such thing, at this date of the world's history, in America, as an independent press. You know it and I know it.
There is not one of you who dares to write your honest opinions, and if you did, you know beforehand that it would never appear in print. I am paid weekly for keeping my honest opinion out of the paper I am connected with. Others of you are paid similar salaries for similar things, and any of you who would be so foolish as to write honest opinions would be out on the streets looking for another job. If I allowed my honest opinions to appear in one issue of my paper, before twenty-four hours my occupation would be gone.

"The business of the journalists is to destroy the truth, to lie outright, to pervert, to vilify, to fawn at the feet of mammon, and to sell his country and his race for his daily bread.
You know it and I know it, and what folly is this toasting an independent press?
We are the tools and vassals of rich men behind the scenes. We are the jumping jacks, they pull the strings and we dance. Our talents, our possibilities and our lives are all the property of other men. We are intellectual prostitutes."


Source: Labor's Untold Story, by Richard O. Boyer and Herbert M. Morais, published by United Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers of America, NY, 1955/1979.

[PzLdr]

There are Federal Laws that prevent one from "giv[ing] it to the President.

[aligncare]

If there is a way out for the Republicans, it will have to be on the back of widespread public disapproval of this move, and the resultant flight of moderate Democrats (how many are left?) from it.

This is the way out.

A campaign to reach out to blue-collar workers could help forge an alliance between congressional Republicans and their union workers back home.

Look at it this way. American union workers are used to short hours and high pay. Illegals are used to long hours and low pay – it's in their genetic makeup. A flood of this type of new worker to the job market could alter expectations of management and bring to bear new pressures in the union/management dynamic, in fact to the entire union movement.

Think of the possibilities and ramifications as American workers, fearful of change in their working conditions, start abandoning democrats in droves, shifting the balance of power in Washington for decades.

Yes, there is definitely something here to explore.

[GourmetDan]

Illegals are used to long hours and low pay – it's in their genetic makeup.

No, it's not 'in their genetic makeup'...