immigration reform

How to break the immigration reform coalition.

Figure out where the joins are on the welding job, and hit those.

For a long time, opponents of comprehensive immigration reform have thought: Why shouldn’t the Republican-controlled House pass an H-1B expansion as a stand-alone bill? If the tech people got what they wanted, would they — and their millions of dollars — really stick around to fight hard for the rest of comprehensive reform? Passing an H-1B bill would be an excellent way to split the fragile pro-reform coalition.

[snip of stuff on a upcoming House H-1B expansion stand-alone bill]

If the tech people were to pull out, and take their money with them, or even if they just lost their passion for the fight — where would that leave the tenuous reform coalition? In a much weaker position.

Continue reading How to break the immigration reform coalition.

Somebody tattled on the Democratic whine party!

Possibly the most important bit in this article (via Hot Air) is the bit I put in bold:

President Barack Obama’s Washington-bashing could boomerang on his party in Congress if he’s not careful, House Democratic leaders have warned White House senior adviser David Axelrod.

The fear — raised by Speaker Nancy Pelosi, campaign chief Chris Van Hollen and Majority Whip Jim Clyburn in a closed-door meeting Thursday — is that Democrats have more to lose if anti-Washington sentiment is not directed at one party or the other.

“If the president is going to go out and talk about how Washington’s broken, he’s got to include a strong contrast with congressional Republicans, or else we’re going to get blamed for it,” one meeting participant said later.

I note this because I’m pretty sure that the President had an expectation that the meeting was going to be free of leaks – and not only was it leaked, it was leaked by somebody who spent that meeting yelling at David Axelrod. Which is how that meeting probably went in the first place. Continue reading Somebody tattled on the Democratic whine party!

Hmm. What’s Spanish for “Hey, rubes!”

[UPDATE] Welcome, Instapundit readers.

I ask because Democrats from the Congressional Hispanic Caucus are trying to excise language from the health care rationing bill that would prohibit illegal immigrants from buying into insurance exchanges (see Hot Air for some analysis of what that entails). Putting aside for the moment whether or not this is a good idea, it’s an open question whether the CHC has the pull that it thinks that it has:

At a similar meeting at the White House in early November, which occurred just days before the House voted on its healthcare bill, the CHC failed to convince Obama to reject the Senate immigration language.

The result was a bloc of solid Democratic votes that remained up in the air until a deal was reached at the last minute to address the gap between the House and the Senate immigration restrictions during “conference negotiations.”

But the healthcare bill didn’t go to conference.

(Via AoSHQ) Let me sum that up: Continue reading Hmm. What’s Spanish for “Hey, rubes!”