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Where in the World is Flap Watch: Blogging from Indianapolis, Indiana
Flap has returned to Indianapolis, Indiana for a summer visit with friends.
One advantage: Flap is now on Eastern rather than Pacific time.
Stay tuned……
Technorati Tags: Flapsblog, Indianapolis, Indiana
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Illegal Immigration Watch: Senate Bill 1639 Amendment Debate
Michelle Malkin is live blogging the United States Senate and the amending of S. 1639.
If you want to watch Dingy Harry Reid, Democrat Senate Majority leader run roughshod over the GOP tune in to C-Span 2.
The deal is done and the folks pushing this bill will have nothing to do with any unscripted debate.
Pathetic.
Flap will be very surprised if this bill passes another cloture vote – but I have been surprised before.
Stay tuned………
Update #1
The Senate is debating something that has NOT even been printed and submitted to the Senate floor.
More foolishness from Dingy Harry.
Are you sorry for voting for cloture yet, Kit Bond et. al. ?
McConnell and Lott should be ashamed of themselves to allow this spectacle. And President Bush?
Can you have negative approval ratings?
Previous:
Illegal Immigration Watch: Immigration Off the Table?
Illegal Immigration Watch: What Awaits Senators When They Return Home
Illegal Immigration Watch: Immigration Bill Advances in the Senate
Illegal Immigration Watch: Senate Watch- The Seven Who Could Stop the Senate Immigration Bill
Illegal Immigration Watch: GOP Offers Senate Immigration Bill Change – Go Home First
Illegal Immigration Watch: Senate to Return to Immigration Bill
Illegal Immigration Watch: Reid and McConnell Revive Senate Immigration Bill
Illegal Immigration Watch: New Life for Senate Immigration Bill?
Michael Ramirez on Paris Hilton AND Illegal Immigration
Michael Ramirez on President Bush and Illegal Immigration
Technorati Tags: Illegal Immigration
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Illegal Immigration Watch: Immigration Off the Table?
Immigration reform stayed alive in the Senate yesterday, albeit not without continuing rancor among Republicans. Restrictionists seem to believe the issue will harm the GOP if it succeeds, but we think the political reality is closer to the opposite: The greater danger for Republicans is if it fails.
We’ve written often about the merits of immigration reform, and we have our own problems with parts of the Senate bill. But it’s worth spending some time on the larger politics of the issue, especially for Republicans. They’re caught between a passionate minority of their party–who oppose any reform that allows illegals a path to citizenship–and the larger electorate, which is more moderate and wants to solve the problem. Like Democrats on national security, this is a classic case in which pandering to the base will harm the GOP overall.
But, the Wall Street Journal obfuscates the REAL ISSUE: Business wants cheap labor and an unending supply of it.
And the piece is full of racial assumptions that racial block voting will continue ad nauseum and ad infinitum.
For more blowback on the WSJ’s silly contentions is this piece in The Corner: Off the Table?
The Senate has taken immigration off the table, only in the sense that they’ve lifted up the plate and thrown its contents into the public’s face. I say that’s going to aggravate a bitter and soon-to-be long-standing national battle over immigration. The Wall Street Journal thinks otherwise. Maybe there are some business folks out there for whom this bill will solve their near-term workforce problems. For them, that suffices to take the issue off the table. But from the perspective of the politics of the nation as a whole, we have only just begun.
Stay tuned as the Senate debates and defeats GOP amendments to the Senate Immigration bill.
Previous:
Illegal Immigration Watch: What Awaits Senators When They Return Home
Illegal Immigration Watch: Immigration Bill Advances in the Senate
Illegal Immigration Watch: Senate Watch- The Seven Who Could Stop the Senate Immigration Bill
Illegal Immigration Watch: GOP Offers Senate Immigration Bill Change – Go Home First
Illegal Immigration Watch: Senate to Return to Immigration Bill
Illegal Immigration Watch: Reid and McConnell Revive Senate Immigration Bill
Illegal Immigration Watch: New Life for Senate Immigration Bill?
Michael Ramirez on Paris Hilton AND Illegal Immigration
Michael Ramirez on President Bush and Illegal Immigration
Technorati Tags: Illegal Immigration
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Iran Watch: Gas Rationing Spurs Violence in Iran
A car burns inside a petrol station in northwest Tehran, 26 June 2007. Angry youths torched petrol stations and long queues formed at fuel pumps after oil-rich Iran announced the start of fuel rationing, triggering nationwide protests.
Iran fuel rationing sparks anger, pump stations burnt
Angry Iranian motorists queued for gasoline on Wednesday hours after the world’s fourth largest oil exporter imposed fuel rationing, sparking chaotic scenes and the torching of two pump stations in the capital.
Drivers raced to fill up their tanks late on Tuesday after the Oil Ministry announced the delayed scheme would finally go ahead at midnight after months of confusion and conflicting statements, forming lines that stretched hundreds of meters.
One fuel station in Pounak, a poorer area of the capital, was set alight while another in eastern Tehran was partially burnt, two of its pumps completely destroyed by fire, witnesses said.
“Last night there were a lot of fights, people were furious due to the sudden decision,” said a 55-year-old pump attendant, who asked for his name not to be used.Those who missed the midnight deadline still faced long lines early on Wednesday in a country where many see abundant and cheap fuel as a right, even after government in May hiked the liter price by 25 percent to 1,000 rials (11 U.S. cents).
Despite its huge energy reserves, Iran lacks refining capacity and must import about 40 percent of its gasoline, a sensitive issue when world powers have threatened new U.N. sanctions in a row with Tehran over its nuclear program.
Ironic isn’t it, that Iran one of the world’s leading oil exporters has a scarcity of gasoline? Yet, they persist in building nuclear facilities for nuclear power – NOT.
The Iranian Mullahs covet nuclear weapons and are facing a third round of United Nations Security Council sanctions over their nuclear program.
Iranians pump gasoline into flasks at a petrol station in Tehran.
Iranians line up to pump gasoline at a petrol station in downtown Tehran, 26 June 2007.
This violence highlights Iran’s achille’s heel. Any military action against Iran because of their reckless nuclear program by Israel and/or the United States would target Iran’s oil fields and their oil refineries. Iran’s economy would quickly stop – as would their military because of the lack of gasoline/fuel.
An Iranian man walks past a damaged petrol station in the northwest of Tehran.
Iranians watch a petrol station burn in Tehran, 26 June 2007.
Will this violence spur blowback by the Iranian clerics on the Iranian people?
You bet…..watch for it…….
And, also watch the FECKLESS United Nations attempt to impose harsher economic sanctions on Iran.
Stay tuned……
There’s rioting over gas rationing in Iran. Bloggers covering the turmoil here , here, and here. Iran is blaming–who else?–the U.S. for the unrest.
The Corner’s Iran round-up here.
Previous:
Michael Ramirez on Iran and the Spread of Islamic Extremism
Technorati Tags: Iran
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Day By Day by Chris Muir June 27, 2007
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Rudy Giuliani Watch: Rudy Slams Clinton on Terrorism
Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani speaks about terrorism and his bid for the presidency at the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington in Rockville, Md., on Tuesday, June 26, 2007. ‘ Giuliani on Tuesday accused former President Clinton of not responding forcefully enough to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing or later terrorist attacks.
Giuliani slams Bill Clinton on terrorism
Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani on Tuesday accused former President Clinton of not responding forcefully enough to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing or later terrorist attacks.
The former New York mayor criticized Democrats, accusing them of weakness and naivete in dealing with terrorism. Giuliani made the comments to about 650 business, corporate and political leaders at Regent University, the conservative Christian college founded by religious broadcaster Pat Robertson.
“Islamic terrorists killed more than 500 Americans before Sept. 11. Many people think the first attack on America was on Sept. 11, 2001. It was not. It was in 1993,” said the former New York mayor.
Giuliani argued that Clinton treated the World Trade Center bombing as a criminal act instead of a terrorist attack, calling it “a big mistake” that emboldened other strikes on the Khobar Towers housing complex in Saudi Arabia, in Kenya and Tanzania and later on the USS Cole while docked in Yemen in 2000.
“The United States government, then President Clinton, did not respond,” Giuliani said. “(Osama) bin Laden declared war on us. We didn’t hear it.”
In hindsight, Giuliani said, maybe it’s all clearer now, “but now is now, and there is no reason to go back into denial, and that is essentially what the Democratic candidates for president want to do: they want to go back, to put the country in reverse to the 1990s.
“I’m not blaming anybody back then,” Giuliani said later in the day at a campaign stop at a Jewish temple in Rockville, Md. “What I am saying is, I do blame people after Sept. 11. Now you have to get it.”
And Rudy does get it while Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, et al. do NOT.
Flap can hardly wait for the Rudy vs Hillary debates.
When I have video of today’s speeches I will post it here.
Stay tuned……
Rudy Giuliani, seen here at Ground Zero in October 2001.
Previous:
Rudy Giuliani Watch: Rudy Continues to Lead in National GOP Polls
Rudy Giuliani Watch: Florida – Its Rudy vs. Fred Thompson
Rudy Giuliani Watch: Rudy Quits Iraq Study Group to Make Money?
Rudy Giuliani Watch: Rudy 28% Thompson 19% McCain 18% Romney 7% in Latest USA Today/Gallup Poll
Rudy Giuliani Watch: The Left’s Inability to Rebut Rudy Giuliani on Terrorism
Rudy Giuliani Watch: Nation Lacks Strong Leadership
Rudy Giuliani Watch: Rudy – “My 12 Commitments to Americaâ€
Technorati Tags: Rudy Giuliani
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Illegal Immigration Watch: What Awaits Senators When They Return Home
Senate Bill 1639 with a 373 page amendment moved forward today with the support of the following GOP Senators:
Bennett, Utah; Bond, Mo.; Brownback, Kan.; Burr, N.C.; Coleman, Minn.; Collins, Maine; Craig, Idaho; Domenici, N.M.; Ensign, Nev.; Graham, S.C.; Gregg, N.H.; Hagel, Neb.; Kyl, Ariz.; Lott, Miss.; Lugar, Ind.; Martinez, Fla.; McCain, Ariz.; McConnell, Ky.; Murkowski, Alaska; Snowe, Maine; Specter, Pa.; Stevens, Alaska; Voinovich, Ohio; Warner, Va.
Courtesy of the NRO Corner here is what awaits some of these pro-cloture/pro-amnesty Senators from their constituents:
Enjoy and Bye Bye……eventually.
Stay tuned………
Previous:
Illegal Immigration Watch: Immigration Bill Advances in the Senate
Illegal Immigration Watch: Senate Watch- The Seven Who Could Stop the Senate Immigration Bill
Illegal Immigration Watch: GOP Offers Senate Immigration Bill Change – Go Home First
Illegal Immigration Watch: Senate to Return to Immigration Bill
Illegal Immigration Watch: Reid and McConnell Revive Senate Immigration Bill
Illegal Immigration Watch: New Life for Senate Immigration Bill?
Michael Ramirez on Paris Hilton AND Illegal Immigration
Michael Ramirez on President Bush and Illegal Immigration
Technorati Tags: Illegal Immigration
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Illegal Immigration Watch: Immigration Bill Advances in the Senate
*****Scroll Down for Updates******
Immigration bill advances in Senate
The Senate voted Tuesday to jump-start a stalled immigration measure to legalize millions of unlawful immigrants.
The pivotal test-vote was 64-35 to revive the divisive legislation. It still faces formidable obstacles in the Senate, including bitter opposition by GOP conservatives and attempts by some waverers in both parties to revise its key elements.
Supporters needed 60 votes to scale procedural hurdles and return to the bill. A similar test-vote earlier this month found just 45 supporters, only seven of them Republicans. This time, 24 Republicans joined 39 Democrats and independent Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut, to back moving ahead with the bill. Opposing the move were 25 Republicans, nine Democrats and independent Sen. Bernard Sanders of Vermont.
But, the next hurdle are the amendments promised to Senators in order to obtain their vote for cloture.
The vote suggested that key senators and White House officials had succeeded — at least for now — in bargaining with skeptical lawmakers for a second chance to pass the bill. Several senators who have been promised votes on their amendments, including Sens. Kit Bond, R-Mo., Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., Norm Coleman, R-Minn., Pete Domenici, R-N.M., John Ensign, R-Nev., and Jim Webb, D-Va., switched their votes to support moving ahead with the measure.
And, then, there is the House……..
As senators were preparing for the showdown vote Tuesday morning, House Republicans meeting privately on the other side of the Capitol were plotting to register their opposition through a party resolution. The measure never saw a vote for procedural reasons, but an attempt to kill it failed overwhelmingly, signaling deep GOP skepticism.
“It’s clear there’s a large number of the House Republicans who have serious concerns with the Senate bill,” said Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, the minority leader.
Flap handicaps a better than even money chance that this bill passes the Senate with some GOP amendments. What will be the result:
1. A stake in the heart to John McCain’s GOP Presidential campaign
2. A House GOP revolt against President Bush reverberating from domestic to his Iraq War policy.
3. A campaign issue removed from the GOP table and resentment of the GOP by its base and loss of Independent voters in border states.
4. Continued Democrat Control of the Congress for the foreseeable future.
Stay tuned……..
cero dineros to send to the RNC
Update:
The list of GOP Senators to hold accountable:
Brownback
Bond
Burr
Coleman
Ensign
Gregg
McConnell
The complete list of GOP Senators voting for cloture:
Bennett, Utah; Bond, Mo.; Brownback, Kan.; Burr, N.C.; Coleman, Minn.; Collins, Maine; Craig, Idaho; Domenici, N.M.; Ensign, Nev.; Graham, S.C.; Gregg, N.H.; Hagel, Neb.; Kyl, Ariz.; Lott, Miss.; Lugar, Ind.; Martinez, Fla.; McCain, Ariz.; McConnell, Ky.; Murkowski, Alaska; Snowe, Maine; Specter, Pa.; Stevens, Alaska; Voinovich, Ohio; Warner, Va.
Is it time to exit the GOP and form a third CONSERVATIVE PARTY?
Indeed, this may jump start the movement.
Update #2
The American people oppose the Senate Immigration bill:
- Based on what they “have read or heard about all the proposals in the Senate immigration bill,” 47% of Americans oppose the bill; 30% favor it.
- 28% say they oppose the bill because it “goes too far toward helping illegal immigrants;” 15% say the bill “does not go far enough.”
Update #3
The Senate procedures and rules Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will use to RAM through S. 1639 for a Thursday final cloture vote.
Update #4
MM has the 373 amendment to S. 1639 that Harry Reid with help from the GOP will ram through the Senate. See how here.
Happy reading……you know the Senators won’t be reading it.
Looks like S. 1639 is a DONE DEAL in the Senate.
Will the House GOP have the Cojones to stop it? Or will they become ex-members of the House?
Previous:
Illegal Immigration Watch: Senate Watch- The Seven Who Could Stop the Senate Immigration Bill
Illegal Immigration Watch: GOP Offers Senate Immigration Bill Change – Go Home First
Illegal Immigration Watch: Senate to Return to Immigration Bill
Illegal Immigration Watch: Reid and McConnell Revive Senate Immigration Bill
Illegal Immigration Watch: New Life for Senate Immigration Bill?
Michael Ramirez on Paris Hilton AND Illegal Immigration
Michael Ramirez on President Bush and Illegal Immigration
Technorati Tags: Illegal Immigration
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Illegal Immigration Watch: Senate Watch- The Seven Who Could Stop the Senate Immigration Bill
*****Update******
Cloture passed 64-35
The bill goes forward and amendments will be offered and voted upon. Look for a final vote on the bill next week before the July 4th recess.
But, will they?
If you wish to be frustrated, Michelle has the contact information for the seven.
The GOP voter base will be watching the Senate today.
Woe be to the GOP Senator and the National Republican Senatorial Committee should cloture be voted today.
Stay tuned……
Update:
Vote looms at 11:50 AM EDT.
Update #2:
Tony Snow says President misspoke.
Freudian slip?
Also, Speaker Nancy Pelosi has stated that she requires the President to deliver 70 GOP votes in the House to give Democrats “cover” for the bill.
The vote has begun in the Senate.
Stay tuned…….
Previous:
Illegal Immigration Watch: GOP Offers Senate Immigration Bill Change – Go Home First
Illegal Immigration Watch: Senate to Return to Immigration Bill
Illegal Immigration Watch: Reid and McConnell Revive Senate Immigration Bill
Illegal Immigration Watch: New Life for Senate Immigration Bill?
Michael Ramirez on Paris Hilton AND Illegal Immigration
Michael Ramirez on President Bush and Illegal Immigration
Technorati Tags: Illegal Immigration
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How the GOP Wins Race For 2008
Richard Cohen is RIGHT, as he lays the groundwork for the Rudy vs. Hillary Presidential campaign in 2008.
And why Rudy wins.
Technorati Tags: Rudy Giuliani, Hillary Clinton, President 2008