GOP Trapped

++Today's Politico had an extensive piece on why the GOP has been trapped by President Obama's move on immigration. A pro-GOP corporate lobbyist felt this was the time when the Republicans could make a move on immigration reform. Even Jeb Bush today criticizing President Obama's unilateral move insisted the GOP should take up the mantle and do immigration reform right.

++Instead,the day was spent with nativist Stephen King threatening impeachment. The whole chorus cried "Emperor Obama" and proclaimed--wrongly--that President Obama violated the constitution. Rep. Brooks from Alabama threatened Obama should be impeached and jailed because of the executive orders.

++Rand Paul did a riff on how President Obama's immigration reform was like FDR's order to imprison Japanese-Americans during WWII. I don't really catch the similarity. Millions protected from deportation, while thousands are deprived of their liberty, even though they were Americans.

++My emails ran solid to impeachment from the right. The GOP vows to get even when they take control of the Congress in January. John Boehner vowed retaliation but he adjourned for a Thanksgiving holiday. Rep.Poe from Texas sponsored a bill to defund the immigration reform, even though it would not receive any federal funding.

++Michelle Bachmann and Steven King are off to spend Thanksgiving on the Mexican border to demonstrate how dangerous the border is.

++Cliff Kincaid of Accuracy in Media proclaimed that President Obama was a Russian spy who should be monitored by our intelligence agencies--like he isn't already. Another conservative radio announcer called for Marines to invade the White House and drag Obama away in handcuffs. 

++The GOP is in total disarray with this move. They actually thought that Obama would act like he did after the 2010 mid-terms and be cowed by them. He wasn't and isn't. And this disturbs my e-mailers more than anything. They keep writing that the mid-terms where 37% of the vote was by 60-year old white men should invalidate the 2012 election. Somehow they don't understand we don't have a parliamentary system. 

++What is a puzzle is why there are no "mature" Republicans who say President Obama did it the wrong way and we will show him how to do it. But no one have appeared. Even John McCain who was for comprehensive immigration reform said on an Arizona station that the next move is to find someone of "standing" to sue the President on his executive orders and to take it to the Supreme Court, which in this instance, even with the toads on it, have already in the case on Arizona that the executive branch had a wide latitude in enforcing a law and had significant discretion on implementation. 

++What is missing here is what I find missing on the issue of Obamacare--there are no human beings considered. None of the affected families are real people. Just remember the House already has voted to deport all the DREAMERS just because Barack Obama. None of the people who may lose Obamacare are humans either. And remember both parties campaigned in 2008 on healthcare reform and immigration reform. One of those parties has disappeared.

++One of the most telling moments in the New Conservatism was Senator Jeffrey Beauregard Sessions complaint about Sonia Sotomayor that she was too empathetic to be a judge.

++This is not the compassionate conservatism rebranded under George W. This is the punitive society in spades. One progressive blogger hit on it this afternoon commenting on how the Republicans are invoking procedures and laws as their main objections to President Obama. The writer warned that this was just a smokescreen.

++President Obama invoking the nation we want to be has no resonance with these people. You don't engage in raw voter suppression with glee,fail to expand Medicaid in your state,and sue the President because he failed to implement the employer mandate according to the schedule in the law (even though you opposed the mandate anyway) and believe we should be a society of equal opportunity and justice for all.

++Louie Gohmert struck again today arguing that President Obama decided on the executive actions on immigration so as to encourage violence in Ferguson, Missouri when the grand jury decision comes down. But there are a lot of people in Ferguson who have a stake in being as violent as possible.

++Rep. Issa of IRS, Benghazi fame said today that there would be no laws Obama wants because he only enforces what he wants. 

++Meanwhile the House Intelligence Committee released its Benghazi Report, which basically exonerated President Obama and Susan Rice from being co-conspirators. That was swept aside. The Benghazi Special Committee has held one session so far and we can expect more in the future.

++The froth and rage after the immigration speech should give minorities all they need to know about the modern GOP. 

++But to top off these week's hijinx,there is the Science Reform Act of 2014 authored by Arizona Representative David Schweikert. This act says that scientists can not share their studies with the EPA. Isn't that cool. We can't have the Enviromental Protection Agency use scientific studies for their information or policy decisions. This is Cave Man stuff.

++AS John McCain often says, "It is darkest before it gets pitch black." 

++We've got a grim two years before us.