"A Vote For Cloture Is A Vote For Amnesty"

NRO's new editorial. Let the scumbags we've elected to defy us at every turn know we won't get fooled again.

The fate of the bipartisan immigration deal now rests with a handful of senators who say that they are against it, but are inclined to vote to let the Senate take it up again. Do not be fooled. Any senator who votes to bring this legislation back to the Senate floor tomorrow is supporting it, and any contrary vote he casts later will be a scam designed to fool gullible voters.

The bill is unpopular, but powerful forces — businesses, journalists, officials in both parties, and racial pressure groups — are determined to push it through. They do not mind if a few senators vote against the bill for the cameras while greasing the track for it when it counts.

Senators who claim to oppose the bill say that they want a new debate on it so that they can improve it. But the broad outlines of this bill are set in stone....

For senators who are professing to wait to see what the final bill looks like before taking a position, the wait is over. The final bill will represent the will of its drafters and defy the expressed will of their constituents. The only way to prevent that inevitable finale, is to bring the curtain down now.

Their scheme is triply deceptive. First, they are attempting to shut down debate -- that's what cloture is -- before there has been any genuine debate on this at all in the Senate. There's been plenty out in America, but the Senate has kept itself nicely insulated from such discord. The whole point of this cloture vote is to shut down debate before debate can tank an extraordinarily unpopular, and fatally flawed, bill.

Second, the cloture vote insures that a vote take place on the bill itself after a very short time, a very short list of amendments, and the possibility that, via Reid's "clay pidgeon strategy," no amendments at all will even be considered.

And third -- the Amnestia Coalition is intending to vote as a bloc against every single amendment that should happen to get by Reid's clay pidgeon strategy, no matter how reasonable (e.g., denying amnesty to gang-members, denying amnesty to those with multiple drunk driving convictions or serious sexual assault/molestation charges -- even this common-sense amendment is considered a poison pill by the Amnestia Coalition and will not be permitted to pass, or even, most likely, be permitted to be raised on the floor at all).

These bastards claim the American people want this bill. If that's the case, why do they fear a lengthy debate? A lengthy debate should only help them if indeed Americans support the bill.

And if the bill is popular -- why the imperative to pass it so long before the elections? Again, if those who seek to push this piece of shit on America truly believe they're acting in accord with the public's wishes, why not extend the debate through next fall and take the vote right before the primary elections? After all-- voting for such a popular bill can't help but improve their poll numbers, right?

This is the worst affront to democracy I have ever witnessed in my lifetime. Not only was the whole corrupt bargain cooked up in secret, not only have they repeatedly attempted to schedule quick votes so that their corrupt deal could be voted on before anyone knew what terms were contained therein and before the public was informed at all on the subject, not only do the proponents of the bill routinely and flagrantly lie about what the bargain is ("Amnestied illegals will be required to pay back taxes!"), not only are they disingenuous about their motives for passing this, not only are the determined to pass this in the face of strong opposition on the level between 50-69% of the public... but, in the end, it's a terrible bill which satisfies no one except corporate lobbyists and racial pressure groups and which they refuse, in order to preserve the fractuous coalition pushing the bill, to improve one iota in any direction.

This is debate? This is democracy? This is the wildly unpopular, ill-considered, poorly-drafted, loophole-ridden, corrupt-payoff bill that we have to pass in order to prove that democracy in America still works?

Gee, I'd've imagined the opposite -- that we could only prove we still have democracy in America by defeating such an immensely unpopular and corruptly fashioned piece of shit.

posted by Ace at 04:14 PM

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