Roll Call reports the Democrats intend to bring up immigration next year as a big fight leading into the 2010 elections. Their approach will be predictable — support extended family immigration, amnesty for all illegals, and no input from the GOP.

Lindsey Graham is no doubt beside himself with delight over this one.

This got me thinking though. The GOP is said to be absolutely opposed to immigration in all cases — some of you might like that, but it does not sell with the general voter. First, it is politically an untenable position. Second, very few of us are really opposed to all immigration. Being a second generation American, I cannot see myself being in favor of sealing up the borders in all cases whatsoever.

However, it seems a Democrat plan to allow full amnesty and extended family immigration will be politically unpopular not just with middle class white voters, but with a great deal of immigrants, Hispanic and otherwise, many of whom are having a hard enough time finding work without competing with a new influx of job seekers. I think the GOP has the ability to beat the Democrats at their own game on immigration next year if done right.

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Two stories in this mornings papers clearly demonstrate where the priorities of the Obama administration lie.  First, the Washington Times reports that enforcement against illegal aliens in the workplace has dropped dramatically - arrests are down 50% from last year.

Arrests of illegal immigrant workers have dropped precipitously under President Obama, according to figures released Wednesday.

Criminal arrests, administrative arrests, indictments and convictions of illegal immigrants at work sites all fell by more than 50 percent from fiscal 2008 to fiscal 2009.

The figures show that Mr. Obama has made good on his pledge to shift enforcement away from going after illegal immigrant workers themselves - but at the expense of Americans’ jobs, said Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas, the Republican who compiled the numbers from the Department of Homeland Security’s U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE).

Yet the government seems to have the time to conduct raids on guitar manufacturer Gibson over their alleged use of “endangered woods”

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They could have saved themselves, but instead, they followed a tortured inside-the-beltway logic that will be lost on the likely voter — I voted for it, to improve it. Uh-huh.

Did members cut spending? End funding of abortion? Enforce the prohibition against illegal immigrants getting the new health care benefit? Cut the $759 billion in new taxes? Curtail the gun health care database? Stop the Medicare cuts? No, oh. I see.

Sounds a whole lot like that famous line, “I voted for it, right before I voted against it.”

Blue Dogs and other Democratic Members of Congress are deluding themselves if they think they can state publicly they voted yes, to improve it. Or that a conference with the White House, the Senate and the House will produce a bill closer to the U.S. Senate’s version.

Instead, they are looking hard for excuses to do the wrong thing.

And if they are looking to end the unending political pain of the Speaker’s health care politics — then the way to end it is to end the bill, and vote no.

Otherwise, they will have to defend their vote in their election, and vote again on the Conference Report — if the bill makes it through the Senate, a very dubious proposition.

Instead, they will be walking the plank, the bill then dies in the Senate — and many of their number will then die in November, 2010.

While the nation is going through the worst recession in modern history, our dollar is deflating because of government debt and we are electronically printing a trillion dollars; unemployment is at 10.2%, let’s tax the American people $752 billion (three quarters of a trillion dollars) and create a new entitlement and spend $1.8 trillion on something less than one in five Americans think is their top concern: health care. Three-quarters of likely voters believe the plan will force employers to give up providing insurance, shredding the “if you like it you can keep it promise.”

All while the American public overwhelmingly oppose the plan, and for triple political pain points, we can have the biggest votes on abortion, immigration, taxes, guns, the public option, Medicare cuts, massive spending and government control all rolled up in one vote, days after special elections that saw Independent voters run like scaled cats, screaming from the Democrats.

And at the same time as the President’s approval rating among likely voters glides ever downward..

Genius, isn’t it? And rational too.

The news keeps getting tougher for the House Leadership in their irrational quest to pass their ObamaCare bill.

First, the Associated Press is reporting the bill will cost $1.2 Trillion without the doctor fix of $250 billion.

The new total will be $1.45 trillion — because the House Leadership intends to create a “self-executing rule” that would pull the doctor fix apart from the House ObamaCare bill — in order to keep the cost at $1.2 Trillion, then fuse the doc fix back into the ObamaCare bill after it passes the House.

It is like a magic trick, presto — $250 billion in new spending just appears in the bill after it passes.

Meanwhile, the new $1.45 billion ought to send the Blue Dogs scampering from the bill.

Then, of course, the House is finally grappling with two thermonuclear issues: abortion and immigration.

But, as numerous news reports state, the Democratic Leaders still do not have the votes for the bill — rumors abound, the most credible put the House vote count at less than 200 for the bill.

The more fundamental question is, why is the U.S. House voting before the U.S. Senate? House leadership has already moved the vote from Thursday to Friday, and are now talking about the vote being moved to Saturday or Monday of Tuesday of next week. House leaders should just punt the vote until after the Senate, and save their members — and themselves — the pain of voting.

Especially when the Senate is now talking post-Thanksgiving for its floor vote?

Why is the Speaker forcing its members to walk the plank again, prior to the Senate vote, especially when it is likely that the bill will never get off the Senate floor?

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I have long argued that conservatives need to be strategic in their thinking when it comes to elections. While I will fully admit that balancing “the most electable” with “the most conservative” is rarely easy it is still a critical decision to make. “Throw all the bums out” is not a wise strategy for regaining the majority or implementing conservative policy.

This has recently been driven home to me as various groups, personalities, and candidates seek to use the Tea Parties, and other populist sentiments, to push their own agenda; an agenda that I think hurts both the GOP and efforts at conservative governance.

One example in particular stands out: Bay Buchanan, Tom Ganley and the attacks on Rob Portman. Portman and Ganley are competing for the Republican nomination for the Ohio US Senate seat open with the retirement of George Voinovich.

Portman is a former Congressman, US Trade Representative, and OMB Director. Ganley is highly successful auto dealer in the Cleveland area. To put it bluntly, the only reason Ganley is a part of this equation is the assertion, or threat depending on your perspective, that he is willing to spend $7 million dollars; most of it his own money.

Now there are problems with this scenario (more on that below), but recently Bay Buchanan has entered the fray in an attempt to make this an ideological battle. We would do well to ignore her advice and be suspicious about her motives.

Rather long rant argument follows below.

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The DailyKos is reporting that out of the 83 signatories to the we will vote no if there is no public option pledge, only 46 remain standing firm. The rest of the progressives have caved. For these 46 liberal Members, a robust public plan means a Medicare plus 5 percent reimbursement rate for providers. However, the Blue Dogs are pushing a rival “negotiated provider reimbursement rate” which the progressives say effectively kills the public option.

Progressives are being squeezed by two fronts, one is their dropping numbers of Members who will stand firm on the public plan or they will vote no pledge, and two, on the negotiated Medicare reimbursement rates which they believe will gut the public option. So, 46 Democrats signed a letter to the Speaker demanding no negotiated rates or we vote no because it will kill the public option.

The Progressives are losing the battle, however, according to the DailyKos, because the direction of the bill is clearly moving to negotiated rates.

But 46 liberals are still more than enough to kill the bill with their votes alone. These 46 votes likely does not account for the other Dem NO votes because of any of the following issues: taxes, spending, abortion, immigration or other bill-killing issues. According to pro-life Democrats, there are 40 NO Dem votes against ObamaCare solely on the issue of abortion, for example.

Curiouser and curiouser said Alice as she went down the rabbit hole…

It is hard to know where to begin, other than to say the President told a Whopper on national television about health care — again.

The most disturbing thing about his health care Whoppers is that he does it with such ease and grace. He practices telling Whoopers. He enjoys telling Whoppers. He makes Whoppers up. Right in his own house. Makes them right on the spot. Super fast too. In fact, some Whoppers can appear right in front of you in seconds.

Maybe he should be the Spokesman in Chief for the Big Whopper. Or maybe there should be a big sign around the 1500 block of Pennsylvania Ave. — Home of the Whopper. Or Home of the King of the Whopper. (King Whopper among the commoners.)

On the one of five Sunday morning talk shows attended by the Whopper-in-Chief, CBS quoted Senator Hatch (R-UT) who said:

“If anyone believes that Washington can do a plan that will cost close to a trillion dollars, cover all Americans, not raise taxes on anyone, not increase the deficit, not reduce benefits or choices for our families or our seniors, then I have a bridge to sell you.”

In fact, in response to this obvious ridicule about his Whoppers, King Whopper told more Whoppers, which Politico reported thusly:

President Barack Obama blitzed the Sunday morning airwaves to pitch health reform but found himself on the defensive — denying the plan breaks his campaign promise not to raise taxes on the middle class and insisting the public insurance option isn’t dead.

Last week, Senator Rockefeller (D-WV) who is a member of the Senate Finance Committee told ABC News that the Senate plan had a “big, big tax” on the middle class. The Wall Street Journal reported that unions were up in arms about the tax and quoted one union member, Mr. Corner, who said: “It’s really going to impact the middle class.” The same health plan has the words tax or fee 243 times.

All of this may be explained by way of background: the name of the Land of the Whopper is called Whopper-bama, which is a special administrative district where the people who live there are call themselves Whopper-bamians, and are fed a constant diet of Whoppers. This food is so special and important that Whopper-bamians even feed Jr. Whoppers to their kids and elderly.

In fact, they have a big Whopper factory that is painted White. Before it was a factory it was called a House. (Although sometimes people slip back to their old ways and call it the House of Whopper, or more often, the Whopper House.)

Indeed, Whopper-bamians show great reverence towards Whoppers — they love Whoppers. It makes them feel better.

And what is really interesting is that some say — eating Whoppers leads to better health. Really, that is what Whopper-bamians say. For example, if you are dealing with an emotional subject, like abortion or immigration, then, that is when you really must have a Whopper. Calms you right down. I have seen it happen. True story.

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Some people say that Republicans have made mistakes when it comes to Hispanic voters.  They point out that Hispanics are a growing part of the population, and assert that GOP opposition to amnesty for illegal immigrants is driving Hispanics away. 
 
The talking point has been commonly used to dismiss Republican views in major policy debates, including most recently the GOP concerns about how illegal immigrants benefit from the House health care bill.

Most of the people who make these claims are Democrats.  And they are right – Republicans do need to change some things to win the Hispanic vote.  But our position on amnesty is not one of them.

A false choice is often presented to Republicans:  support amnesty or offend Hispanic voters. 

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Fresh on the heels of his appearance at the G-20, Barack Obama next week ventures to Trinidad and Tobago for the Summit of the Americas. Prior to that he’ll stop in Mexico to try to improve damaged relations with that country. As I’ve written elsewhere, Obama triggered a low-level trade war when he kowtowed to the Teamsters and canceled the program that formerly allowed some Mexican commercial trucks to operate in the U.S. This put the U.S. in unilateral violation of NAFTA, and Mexico retaliated by raising tariffs on 90 products imported from the U.S. Mexican sourced have also made clear that more tariffs are likely if this dispute is not quickly resolved.

Obama deputized Ray LaHood to solve the problem - and bring the U.S. back into compliance with NAFTA - by creating a new trucking program. Last Friday however, Nancy Pelosi told Obama to go pound sand:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi cast doubt Friday on the possibility that Congress would revive a program that allows Mexican truckers to operate in the U.S…

“I don’t see a change coming,” Pelosi said Friday in a roundtable discussion with regional reporters. “The president may have some other views, and we’ll see what he has to say about it. But I don’t see any change.”

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Liberals had a lot of fun last year picking on John McCain for having a short temper. It’s poetic justice that he seems to hold a grudge:

John McCain sounds angry and frustrated that, despite the risks he took in pushing immigration reform, Hispanic voters flocked to Democrat Barack Obama in last year’s presidential contest. McCain’s raw emotions burst forth recently as he heatedly told Hispanic business leaders that they should now look to Obama, not him, to take the lead on immigration…

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According to reports, President Obama said it’s important to have a quick path to citizenship for illegal immigrants so that they can join unions to “get protection” from evil employers.

Speaking at a town hall meeting in Southern California, Obama broached his newest cause celebre, “comprehensive” immigration reform, in Costa Mesa.

“If they stay in the shadows in the underground economy, they are oftentimes pitted against American workers since they can’t join a union. They can’t complain about minimum wages.”

Obama also claimed that we need to make sure illegal immigrants don’t flood across the border uncontrolled saying that we need to secure our border with Mexico. Yet, even as he told Californians that he is an advocate of a tighter boarder, reports have emerged that his administration is going to take money away from immigration workplace enforcement programs allowing immigrants to more easily take jobs illegally in the U.S.

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One of the benefits of reading a lot of judicial opinions, as I do, is that you get to see a lot of retail examples of how our government operates at its most legalistic-bureaucratic. Yesterday’s opinion by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in River Street Donuts, LLC v. Napolitano is a wonderful little vignette about a bureaucratic system run amok.

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