Delaware Liberal

“Rising Republican hostility toward President Obama’s impending immigration plan is as intense as has ever existed between the White House and the GOP,” the Los Angeles Times reports.

“But the strong reaction by Republican leaders has less to do with opposition to the nuts and bolts of the president’s immigration policy and more to do with fear and anger that the issue will derail the agenda of the new Republican majority before the next Congress even convenes. Republican leaders who had hoped to focus on corporate tax reform, fast-track trade pacts, repealing the president’s healthcare law and loosening environmental restrictions on coal are instead being dragged into an immigration skirmish that they’ve tried studiously to avoid for most of the last year.”

I imagine that was the plan. And Republicans are too bigoted and dumb enough to fall for it. Indeed, this whole fucking immigration mess is due to their unabashed racism on the part of the GOP. All they had to do is pass the Senate plan, which was a compromise with Senate Republicans that provide much increased (and wasteful) border security. And this issue would be over with and the GOP would be back to wooing the Latino vote. Instead, they are going to freak the fuck out and let the racist flag fly proudly, and they are going to lose Latinos for multiple centuries. For the President's part, it is always golden when the right thing to do syncs up with the politically right thing to do.

From Politico:

“Republican leaders have intensified their planning to prevent a government funding showdown, weighing legislative options that would redirect GOP anger at Barack Obama’s expected action on immigration and stave off a political disaster. Speaker John Boehner, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and their top aides and deputies are mulling several options that would give Capitol Hill Republicans the opportunity to vent their frustration with what they view as an unconstitutional power grab by the White House — without jeopardizing the government financing bill.”

These people sound like insane sociopaths. A need to vent? Really? Jonathan Chait: “That a shutdown gives Republicans any actual leverage, as opposed to imagined leverage, is another right-wing fantasy. It is now fairly well-established that the sole impact of a government shutdown is to make the public hate the party that controls Congress. The gun the conservatives are holding is pointed at their own head.”