Amnesty* Passes Senate Judiciary Committee.

Looks like they'll try and ram it through the Senate while everyone is on Scandal Watch.

After five days of debate over dozens of amendments, the Judiciary Committee voted 13 to 5 in support of the bill, with three Republicans joining the committee’s 10 Democrats. The legislation emerged with its core provisions largely intact, including new visa programs for high-tech and low-skilled workers and new investments in strengthening border control.

...

The comprehensive bill is now headed to the full Senate, where Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) urged fellow Republicans on Tuesday not to block the bill from a floor vote. The Congressional Budget Office will take two weeks to issue an assessment of the fiscal cost of the bill, so Democratic aides said the floor debate could begin around June 10.

The 3 Republican yes votes were Jeff Flake, Lindsey Graham and Orin Hatch. I guess Hatch is done pretending to be a conservative and is back to his old deal making ways.

Don't let these three idiots fool you into thinking they made things better, they were right there with Chuck Schumer all the way. Sometimes Chuck let them pretend to be standing tough but it was all for show.

On Monday, Schumer was caught by CSPAN asking a staffer “Do our Republicans have a pass on this one if they want?” in reference to a Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., amendment that would have denied earned income tax credits (EITC) to amnestied immigrants. In fact, Schumer’s Republicans did “have a pass” on that amendment. Flake and Graham voted with their colleagues to limit the EITC. But, since Democrats have a majority on the committee, that amendment, and every other conservative amendment trying to restrict the growth of the welfare states, failed.

It will be at least two weeks before the bill can come to the Senate floor. That's the time they need to write the fairy tale CBO cost report.

We're going to have to take a pause on Scandal Mania for a bit at some point to try and bring the pressure to stop this crap. Again.

Added: Amnesty* isn't just terrible policy, it's awful politics.

Bloomberg’s Al Hunt: “For the president to have a good second term, he has to get a good immigration bill through. That’s a sine qua non of everything. If he doesn’t get that through, it’s going to be really a dreadful year.”

CNN’s Jessica Yellin: “[President Obama] actually could have a very successful second term (despite) the controversies he’s facing today. If he gets immigration reform done, that would be a major legacy accomplishment. . . .They’re hoping here [at the White House] that if he does immigration that would break the narrative that he is entrenched in, this sort of swirl of ineptitude and controversy, and put him on a solid footing again.”

Yes, let's screw over the country, any shred of hope for shrinking government AND hand Obama a win. That's the kind of genius level thinking you can expect from the GOP.

*Don't take my word for it that this amnesty, take Marco Rubio's.

"Earned path to citizenship is basically code for amnesty."- @marcorubio 10/24/10 ace.mu.nu/archives/33934… …

— DrewM (@DrewMTips) May 9, 2013

posted by DrewM. at 09:45 AM

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