LatinaLista — The news today that a group of House Republicans had thrown up a roadblock in passing a bailout that everyone, from the President and his top financial advisors to CNBC stock analysts, say is absolutely necessary to stave off the 21st Century version of the Great Depression is not surprising.
WASHINGTON – NOVEMBER 17: House Minority Leader-elect John Boehner (R-OH) speaks while newly elected House Republican leadership members (L-R) Rep. Roy Blunt (R-MO), Rep. Thaddeus McCotter (R-MI), current House Majority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) and Rep. Tom Carter (R-TX) during a news conference after the House Republican Conference elected its new leadership for the 110th Congress on Capitol Hill November 17, 2006 in Washington, DC.
(Source: Getty Images)
We’ve seen House Republicans act in a way that bulldozed the Congress into accepting their way on another proposed piece of legislation — immigration reform.
Thanks to them, nothing changed for undocumented immigrants and their families, except that things have gotten a lot worse.
Back then, they claimed to be working on behalf of the American public. The funny thing is most Americans never wanted to separate parents from their children or deport people whose only crime was working under a false social security number.
House Republicans bullied that bill off the table — will they do the same again?
Or more importantly, how long will the American public continue to let them?
House Republicans prove bipartisan cooperation is not their forte
Comment(4)
Evelyn
You are so right about the immigration bill Marisa and here is the reason, talk about racism. WOW!
Nativism in the House:
A Report on the House Immigration Reform Caucus
By the Building Democracy Initiative, Center for New Community
In the ebb and flow of nativist politics, the House Immigration Reform Caucus has been one of the most powerful and significant forces on Capitol Hill. With 110 congressmen and women as of this report, its members constitute fully one quarter of the House of Representatives.
Members have introduced some of the most punitive legislation proposed during the last two House sessions. Their past chairman, Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.), is now running for president and participating in national debates.
Their current chairman, Rep. Brian Bilbray (R-Calif.), is a former lobbyist for the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR). Some of its members have helped legitimize vigilante organizations such as the Minutemen. While voters tend to view their representatives as individuals or by party affiliation, the members of the House Caucus have acted as a bloc. Collectively, they have stood athwart the legislative process, preventing the emergence of meaningful and humane policy choices. And they have gone all the while virtually unnoticed.
The overwhelming majority of Caucus members are from the furthest, hardest edge of the Republican Party’s rightwing; only eight are Democrats. Although they often invoke the supposed interests of native-born wage earners, these representatives generally have stiff anti-labor voting records. Many also oppose a woman’s right to choose, and vote regularly against civil rights and civil liberties concerns.
The report finds that the Caucus is ideologically-driven, and might more accurately fit an “ultra-nationalist” model typically associated with far-right European parties such as Jean-Marie Le Pen’s National Front in France, the Vlaams Belang in Belgium, or the Swiss Peoples Party. Although it is often assumed that nativist politics are the result of economic resentment, these congressmen and women are not elected from districts with a common economic or demographic character. They come from suburban, middle class California districts with a significant minority of Hispanic residents. In the South, Mid-South, and West they are elected from districts with a measurable percentage of rural, blue collar white voters, and very small numbers of Hispanics.
Notwithstanding the Caucus’ political character, its members have received campaign contributions from a surprisingly wide range of sources, including AT&T, the American Medical Association, and Home Depot. All told, 2600 PACs, most of whom are not considered anti-immigrant, have contributed to the HIRC’s campaign coffers. In addition, Caucus members receive funding from nativist sources such as the Minuteman PAC as well as from ultra-conservative sources such as the Eagle Forum and the Club for Growth.
The election of Rep. Brian Bilbray as the Caucus’ chairman is likely to cement the already symbiotic relationship between fringe anti-immigrant advocacy groups and Caucus members. Rep. Bilbray is himself a former lobbyist for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, a controversial anti-immigrant organization that holds questionable ties to white nationalist and nativist groups. At the same time, the former HIRC director has gone to work at FAIR as a Government Relations Associate.
Most recently, Caucus members have begun to actively promote legislation aimed at gutting the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. As of the time of this report’s printing, 90 members of the House of Representatives signed on as co-sponsors to legislation aimed at nullifying the Fourteenth Amendment’s “birthright” provision. If passed, this type of legislation would certainly provoke a constitutional crisis.
http://buildingdemocracy.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1094&Itemid=9999
http://buildingdemocracy.org/index.php?
option=com_content&task=view&id=1083&Itemid=10009
Grandma
The immigration bill was shot down by republicans because they listened to the people who shut the phone lines down critizing this bill. The bail out is also BS. The democrats have added pork to that bill and 95% of Americans are totally against it. Of course the democrats will pass it come hell or high water.
Evelyn
No one likes having to bailout rich people.
Bush is not a Democrat. It is his administration
that is calling for the bailout.
You do understand that “pork” are earmarks. No earmark amendments are being allowed to be attached to this bill, so that is a lie.
Evelyn
Grandma
The bill that passed tonight had one hundred fifty billion dollars worth of earmarks (tax breaks) attached to it. That is why it passed with flying colors!
Wait till it gets to the house. NOT!!
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