Last Call For The Senate Immigration Bill

It passed 68-32, with all 54 Democrats voting for it.  Too bad that the House GOP leadership is vowing that the Senate bill will never get a House vote.

Rep. Paul Ryan says the House won’t be taking up the Senate immigration bill, but it will be working on its own legislation that he says will create a “workable legal immigration system.”

The Wisconsin Republican told Sean Hannity on Fox News on Wednesday that the border security amendment to immigration reform passed by the Senate brings that bill closer to the House position, but he wants to make sure there are “triggers” in the final bill.

Guess what those triggers are.

 

“We’re not going to bring up the Senate bill, we’re going to do it our own way, on our own very methodical way, because we want to make sure we get this stuff right,” Ryan said. “We want to have real triggers on the border, real triggers on what we call the e-verify.”

And of course Orange Julius says that no compromise with the Senate will get a vote in the House unless House Republicans support it.

Speaker John Boehner says he will not bring up any eventual House-Senate immigration compromise for a vote unless it has the support of the majority of House Republicans.

“For any legislation — including the conference report — to pass the House it’s going to have to be a bill that has the support of the majority of our members,” Boehner told reporters Thursday.

So far the 2006 playbook is continuing apace, and I'm confident the results will be the same:  the House GOP won't even be able to pass immigration reform among its own members and the Senate bill will die.

Right along with the GOP's chances in 2014 and 2016.

Moving Ahead At His Own Perry, Again

Well, that didn't take long, did it.

Gov. Rick Perry is calling lawmakers back immediately for another special session to deal with abortion issues, and also to consider transportation funding and new sentencing guidelines for 17-year-olds convicted of capital crimes.

Unlike the last 30-day special session, Perry is not waiting 16 days before adding abortion to the agenda. It will start immediately.

“Through their duly elected representatives, the citizens of our state have made crystal clear their priorities for our great state,” Perry said in his proclamation.

“Texans value life and want to protect women and the unborn. Texans want a transportation system that keeps them moving. Texans want a court system that is fair and just,” he said.

Perry also alluded to the throngs who flooded the Capitol Tuesday night and disrupted the Senate just as it was poised to break the filibuster of Sen. Wendy Davis and push through abortion regulations.

“We will not allow the breakdown of decorum and decency to prevent us from doing what the people of this state hired us to do,” Perry said.

The people of the state of Texas want you to violate the Constitution?  OK.  Well, it'll get blocked in federal court, so have fun with that, chumpy.

In Which Zandar Answers Your Burning Questions

After this week's historic SCOTUS rulings, Steve M. asks:

When I consider the possibility that the difference is that powerful economic interests don't lose anything from gay equality, I think: but why does there seem to be progress on immigration? Well, the party the powerful like best, the GOP, allegedly can't win the White House without Hispanic votes. But, then, why are abortion rights under attack in just about every state where Republicans are in charge? Why do Republicans still think a hard-line stance on abortion has no political downside? And why don't they seem to feel that way anymore about gay rights? How did gay rights get decoupled from abortion as part of the traditional-values wedge-issue package that always kept Middle American whites voting for the party most unabashed in its defense of the plutocracy?

Three reasons.

1. Because unlike African-Americans, LGBTQ folks don't vote 95%+ for the Democrats.
2. More than a few of them are white.
3. We didn't just re-elect an LGBT president.

Really is that simple.

StupidiNews!

• President Obama's African trip continues as he visits Senegal, Tanzania, and South Africa.
• GOP House Government Oversight Committee chair Darrel Issa instructed the IRS to leave out evidence that liberal political groups were targeted for additional scrutiny as well.
• FEMA will increase funding for relief grants to New Jersey's coastal towns still recovering from Hurricane Sandy.
• Japan's exemption from US sanctions against countries that import Iranian crude oil has led to Tokyo's oil imports doubling from Tehran.
• Microsoft says that Windows 8.1 will include native 3-D printer drivers for a more uniform experience.

Last Call For The Gulf Ecosystem

Reminder:  the millions of gallons of oil spilled into the Gulf of Mexico three years ago, not to mention all the chemicals used to break up that oil, didn't just "go away".

The Gulf of Mexico could see a record-size dead zone this year of oxygen-deprived waters resulting from pollution, US scientists have cautioned based on government data models.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s forecasts said the dead zone could be as large as New Jersey, or up to 8,561 square miles (22,172 square kilometers).

Dead zones are toxic to marine life and are caused by excessive nutrient pollution due to agriculture runoff. They are influenced by weather, precipitation, wind and temperature.

When there is little oxygen in the water, most marine life near the bottom is unable to survive.

“This year’s prediction for the Gulf reflects flood conditions in the Midwest that caused large amounts of nutrients to be transported from the Mississippi watershed to the Gulf,” NOAA said in a statement.

Oh yeah, and the fact the Gulf seabed is a nightmare of oil, chemicals, and other pollutants.  Enjoy!

More On DOMA's Demise

Section 3 of DOMA is toast, but Section 2, which does allow states to discriminate still on same-sex marriage, may be ripe for challenge.  James Joyner explains:

It occurs to me, however, that the impact of Windsor is effectively to render gay marriage the law in all 50 states.

Recall that the chief motivating fear of the Defense of Marriage Act was to prevent a judge in one state—Hawaii, where gay marriage remains illegal, was thought to be the likely culprit—declaring limiting marriage to one man and one woman violated the Equal Protection Clause, people flocking to that state to marry, and returning back home and,  because of the Full Faith and Credit Clause, being deemed legally married at home.

Well, SCOTUS has now said that the Equal Protection Clause prevents Congress from discriminating against gays as a class, at least in the arena of marriage, which is fundamentally the province of states. Given that, then, doesn’t the Equal Protection Clause mean that residents of Alabama are now free to travel to California, tie the knot, and then able to demand recognition of their marriage back home?

If not, why not?

I personally think the court is now waiting for this exact challenge.   The logic striking down Section 3, that singling out same-sex couples for federal discrimination is itself unconstitutional, would have to apply to the individual states as well.

Or it would, if the courst would be given a reason to say so.  That appears to be the next step:  someone getting married in say California or New York and moving to Florida or some other anti same-sex marriage state, and then suing under DOMA.

I would have to think that would be the thing to do.  Somebody will, just a question of how quickly that case gets to SCOTUS.

When it does, bang.  Five votes to say denial of same-sex marriage violates the Fifth Amendment.

The Great Prop 8 No Hate Debate, Season Finale

DOMA Section 3 banning federal recognition of same-sex marriage, ruled unconstitutional on 5th Amendment grounds.  5-4 ruling.

California Prop 8 case dismissed for standing grounds, lower court ruling stands, Prop 8 is unconstitutional.  Also a 5-4 ruling.

Bottom line, CA can start limited same-sex marriage where officials believe the lower court ruling that Prop 8 is unconstitutional is valid.  Federally, where states have same-sex marriage, they are entitled to all federal marriage benefits and must be recognized by the US.

Carry on.

StupidiNews!

• Texas Democrats, led by State Sen. Wendy Davis, managed to filibuster a bill that would close 90% of the state's abortion clinics past a midnight deadline, killing it.
• Democrat Ed Markey won the special election for John Kerry's Senate seat over Republican Gabriel Gomez, securing a 9-point win.
• President Obama's climate change plan announced yesterday singled out coal-fired power plants as the nation's largest source of carbon dioxide.
• Denmark, the country with households in the deepest amount of debt, faces a major test with mortgage rates spiking on the US Fed scaling back bond action.
• Security data shows the vast majority of malware attacks come from legitimate sites that are compromised, not specific attack sites.

Last Call For The Nadering Nabobs Of Negativity

Ralph Nader can't quit trying to win it for the GOP.

“I’m going to find at least ten enlightened billionaires or multibillionaires and I’m going to have a criteria. Have they spoken out about where they think the country is going? And are they worried about it? And have they done things reflecting some sort of civic enlightenment and courage? And are they able to communicate? Obviously, they have the money. And I’m going to encourage them to run.”

His target is to make sure Hillary doesn't get into the White House.

“We really need a dynasty now? We’ve had twelve years of the Bushes, what — do you want eight more years of the Clintons? Do we really want a redux here or do we want fresh energy and refresh redirection?” Of his specific criticisms of Clinton, Nader says the former Secretary of State “never saw a weapons system she didn’t like, never challenged the Pentagon when she was on the Senate Armed Services Committee.”

Nader would like to see Sen. Barbara Boxer run, but assumes “she’s not willing to take the next step.”

“They’re all deferring to Hillary and, let me tell you, anyone who thinks Hillary will have cakewalk three and a half years from the next presidential election better look back at 2008 and see if that was a cakewalk. She’s going to have competitors.”

Barbara Boxer?  Sure, she's pretty anti-Pentagon, but there needs to be more.  Which is why Nader keeps screwing things up.  He ran against Al Gore and we got Dubya as a result, remember?  And he sure prevented useless, bloody, expensive wars, didn't he?

Nope.  I'll never forgive the guy for Florida 2000.  Ever.  Show yourself out, Ralph.  Don't come back.

Prefacing A Pre-Failure

WIN THE MORNING decided last night that President Obama's climate change initiative being announced today has already failed and won't get any support from anyone, so he might as well quit now.

President Barack Obama’s new climate change agenda may be ambitious, but experts warn it won’t be enough to avoid the worst effects of a warming planet.

The climate threat is so severe, they say, that the administration must quickly pivot from the steps it’s announcing Tuesday — including greenhouse gas regulations for power plants — to tackle other parts of the economy.

Le sigh, le groan.

Even the most unprecedented strides toward reducing greenhouse gas emissions pale next to the scope of the problem facing the planet. Still, environmental activists say Tuesday’s announcements will be a big deal. They’re thrilled Obama is finally refocusing on climate change in his second term.

“Really, this is a moment that has been 20 years in the making, and most of the last 20 years unfortunately has not been well spent,” said David Hawkins, director of climate programs at the Natural Resources Defense Council.

While climate change activists and long-time observers of the ebbs and flows of environmental policy are elated, they are also quietly reminding the president that more work needs to be done.

Yes, so quietly that Politico is shooting down the initiative in advance, along with Coal State Dems.

You can’t do something that is unattainable,” said Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), who famously fired a bullet through the cap-and-trade bill in a 2010 campaign ad. “It’s unreasonable. What they’re doing has never been done.”

So yes, if this seems familiar, where the President is being dumped on by the purist left for an insufficient effort and attacked by moderates in his own party before he's actually made the announcement, welcome to the last four years of this administration.

When President Obama chooses to user the executive branch to get things done, it's either "not enough" or "unprecedented tyranny".  When he doesn't, it's "failure to act" and "another broken promise".

The guy can't win, and not a single person it seems is grateful for the effort.  Ever.

The Day The Voting Died

As expected, the Roberts Court has struck down Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act by cleverly striking down Section FOUR instead, saying that the formula that Congress uses to determine which states are under Section 5 pre-clearance is no longer Constitutional.  And of course is was a 5-4 vote to throw out 49 years of voting protections for minorities.

A deeply divided Supreme Court has limited use of a key provision in the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965, in effect invalidating federal enforcement over all or parts of 15 states with past history of voter discrimination.

The court said it is now up to congressional lawmakers to revise the law to meet constitutional scrutiny.

"Our country has changed, and while any racial discrimination in voting is too much, Congress must ensure that the legislation it passes to remedy that problem speaks to the current conditions," said Chief Justice John Roberts for the 5-4 conservative majority.

Section 4 of the law was struck down, the coverage formula used by the federal government to determine which states and counties are subject to continued oversight. Roberts said that formula from 1972 was outdated and unworkable.

Sure.  Republicans will get right on that new formula thing.  Count out the South from here on out, folks.  It's open season on massive gerrymandering because now, no states, districts, or localities are subject to Section 5 rules.  Chief Justice Roberts' opinion is here:

Held: Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act is unconstitutional; its formula can no longer be used as a basis for subjecting jurisdictions to pre-clearance.

Justice Ginsburg's epic dissent should be in America's history books:

In the Court’s view, the very success of §5 of the Voting
Rights Act demands its dormancy. Congress was of
another mind. Recognizing that large progress has been
made, Congress determined, based on a voluminous rec­
ord, that the scourge of discrimination was not yet extir­
pated. The question this case presents is who decides
whether, as currently operative, §5 remains justifiable,
this Court, or a Congress charged with the obligation to
enforce the post-Civil War Amendments “by appropriate
legislation.” With overwhelming support in both Houses,
Congress concluded that, for two prime reasons, §5 should
continue in force, unabated. First, continuance would
facilitate completion of the impressive gains thus far
made; and second, continuance would guard against back­
sliding. Those assessments were well within Congress’
province to make and should elicit this Court’s unstinting
approbation.

The only thing that's history now?  The rights of millions of Americans to vote.

StupidiNews!

• Former Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi has been sentenced to 7 years in prison for having sex with an underage pole dancer and then covering it up with the power of his office.
• Russian cosmonauts will take the Olympic Torch to the International Space Station ahead of February's 2014 Winter Games in Sochi, Russia.
• New IRS interim chief Danny Werfel revealed the agency had targeted liberal organizations as well as conservative ones for extra scrutiny as non-profits.
• Former New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine may be facing a lawsuit from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau over his role at the now defunct MF Global financial firm.
• California is taking on Bitcoin over wire transfer licenses which the state says the online currency trader needs and doesn't have.

Last Call For Snowden's Motives

If this story from the South China Morning Post is true, young Edward Snowden is in a crapload of trouble (wherever he is).

Edward Snowden secured a job with a US government contractor for one reason alone – to obtain evidence on Washington’s cyberspying networks, the South China Morning Post can reveal.

For the first time, Snowden has admitted he sought a position at Booz Allen Hamilton so he could collect proof about the US National Security Agency’s secret surveillance programmes ahead of planned leaks to the media.

“My position with Booz Allen Hamilton granted me access to lists of machines all over the world the NSA hacked,” he told the Post on June 12. “That is why I accepted that position about three months ago.”

During a global online chat last week, Snowden also stated he took pay cuts “in the course of pursuing specific work”.

In other words, Snowden specifically took the job so he could leak.  That was always his intent.

He's done.  The only question is who else he brings down with him.  Yes, Mr. Greenwald, I'm looking at you.  Greendwald supposedly has been in contact with Snowden for months.  If Snowden's sole purpose was to get at classified material with the intent to leak it, what Greenwald knew and when suddenly becomes very germane.  He's not a journalist at this point.  He's a possible accomplice and possible co-conspirator.

Things just got real interesting.

SCOTUS-Palooza

The Supreme Court handed down a number of big rulings today, including Fisher vs. Texas.  In the case of Fisher however it was a non-ruling, the summary judgment of the 5th Circuit sent back down for further ruling.  Kevin Drum:

Well, the Supreme Court has finally handed down a ruling in one of this year's high-profile cases, and.....it punted. In a case challenging affirmative action at the University of Texas, the Supremes ruled that the Fifth Circuit court failed to apply strict scrutiny when it upheld the university's claim that affirmative action was necessary as way of promoting diversity. Key quote: "The reviewing court must ultimately be satisfied that no workable race-neutral alternatives would produce the educational benefits of diversity."

So now it goes back to the Fifth Court, and then most likely back up to the Supreme Court someday. For now, nothing has changed.

Clarence Thomas made it clear though that if the court had ruled, he would have eliminated all affirmative action nationally:

While it does not, for constitutional purposes, matter whether the University’s racial discrimination is benign, I note that racial engineering does in fact have insidious consequences. There can be no doubt that the University’s discrimination injures white and Asian applicants who are denied admission because of their race. But I believe the injury to those admitted under the University’s discriminatory admissions program is even more harmful.

He goes on to basically say that affirmative action now is as legally indefensible as Jim Crow laws, segregation, slavery, and the Confederacy were in America's past.

It was the other decisions that made things worse, particularly for those seeking a course of action to fight workplace discrimination.  Two decisions, Vance v. Ball State University and UT Southwestern Medical Center v. Nassar, made it much harder to bring workplace discrimination (Vance) and retaliation (Nassar) cases. Both were 5-4 rulings written by Justice Kennedy (natch.) Vance addressed this question: who's liable for harassment in a company, supervisors or co-workers?

Under Title VII, an employer’s liability for workplace harassment may depend on the status of the harasser. If the harassing employee is the victim’s co-worker, the employer is liable only if it was negligent in controlling working conditions. In cases in which the harasser is a  “supervisor,” however, different rules apply.

Kennedy's ruling:

An employee is a “supervisor” for purposes of vicarious liability under Title VII only if he or she is empowered by the employer to take tangible employment actions against the victim.

In other words, co-workers aren't company liable for harassment claims.

Nassar had a similar ruling that retaliation claims were held to a strict standard.  Not a good day to be an employee, but for now, affirmative action lives.

For now.  More SCOTUS fun tomorrow in a rare Tuesday session.  Still to go:  rulings on DOMA, California's Prop 8, and the big one, Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act.

Gang Of Eight Head Fake

Senate Democrats say they're very close to 70 votes for immigration reform, which is going to make things all the more tragic when the GOP-led House kills the bill.

Immigration reform has gotten a new burst of life as a growing number of Senate Republicans have embraced the 1,000-page-plus legislation, setting up President Obama for a big victory this week.

The sudden surge in Republican support has been a pleasant surprise for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), who urged the bill’s authors to focus on winning 60 votes — the minimum for passing it.

Instead, Sens. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.), the leaders of the Gang of Eight, are marching toward 70 votes, a target intended to put maximum pressure on the House to act.

The House is the X factor. The lower chamber is expected to pass narrow immigration bills that do not include a path to citizenship, which is a staple of the Senate legislation. Conservatives in the House, including Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), strongly oppose the Senate bill.

Still, an overwhelming bipartisan vote would be a strong boost for a Senate bill that just days ago was teetering.

What's going on here is there's more than a few Republicans who see the opportunity to sign on to the long game and say "Hey, I supported immigration reform."  They also know that Republicans in the House will never pass anything even remotely like the Senate bill, if they end up passing anything at all.

If John Boehner were even mildly competent, he would have already passed a massive border security and visa expansion bill with no path to citizenship measures and told the Senate to suck it.  Democrats would have choked on it and the GOP could say "Well, we actually passed a bill, unlike the Democrats."  It would have gotten them through 2014 easily, and handed another setback to President Obama.

However, because Boehner is herding cats and Eric Cantor is hanging around like Iago going "Hey bro, that's an awful bad break for ya" every 35 minutes, that hasn't happened yet.  It's still possible that Boehner, a handful of Republicans, and a pile of Democrats could pass the Senate bill, but I'm thinking that's not going to happen.

Rather, the most likely outcome is that Boehner tries to pass the border security and visa bill, fails miserably, and the Senate version of the bill dies without a vote.

We'll see, but the practical upshot is it doesn't matter if the Senate immigration bill gets 99 votes:  it will die in the House, if not from political reality, then from Republican voter apathy.  Only 37% of GOP voters in a new Pew/USA Today poll think passing immigration reform with a path to citizenship will help the Republican party.  There's no penalty from the base for failing to pass this bill, and that's all that will matter to the GOP in the House.

Count on it.  And I'm not the only one who feels this way.