As Katrina noted below, the DREAM Act amnesty should finally be voted on in the Senate tomorrow. One of the commenters on her post asked if there was a grid of yes and no votes, a la Rich’s grid on views of the tax deal among GOP presidential possibles. There isn’t a DREAM grid as far as I know, but the closest thing is Roy Beck’s post from earlier today listing the senators leaning the right way but needing encouragement and those leaning the wrong way but who can be moved. It helpfully includes telephone numbers for those who might want to politely relate their views to the members of the World’s Greatest Deliberative Body™.
Mickey Kaus, from whom I stole the title of this posting, has a typically incisive analysis of the issue: “DREAM is all amnesty, no prevention. Maybe that’s because its backers care about amnesty but not prevention.” And he points to a way that a DREAM 2.0 might come up next year:
If DREAM fails today, then some liberal Republican can join with Democrats to hold hearings on what a Position 2 DREAM Act would look like. Krikorian has already sketched out some ideas. That would be a valuable negotiation to have. To get it, the DREAM Act bum’s rush needs to fail this weekend.
Right now, Mickey’s last sentence is the most important one.
Thanks for your strong stance on this topic Mark. You understand the damaging and long range implications of coddling this form of mass crime.
In fact, I'd go so far as to say that no good ends can be expected to come out of mass criminal activity, but then I'm a traditionalist!
Everyone can still call in tomorrow morning to try and voice an opinion against this horrible Amnesty bill one last time to your two Senators.
Once employment and immigration laws are enforced, as they will be, since a dearth of good jobs will be our measure for the next decade at least, then most illegal aliens will go home to where life is easier, albeit less glamorous, by virtue of not being hounded for bearing a criminal status which they chose for themselves.
To get to that point, we must NOT reward law breaking in any form, and that means saying NO to this obvious attempt at mass Amnesty.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbusePlease keep on calling the undecided Senators to urge them to oppose the "Dream Act" amnesty and vote NO on cloture. Leave messages in both their D.C. and local offices!
Thanks.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThis was my biggest fear regarding the lame duck session. I have called on this before, and I will call tomorrow. It's too gosh darn bad I have a job, sometimes, as it interferes with my calling the pols to try and keep them on the right path.
Please folks, please call on this, it is a disgrace what Reid has been doing the past few weeks.
NO AMNESTY, NO REGULARIZATION, NO NADA NOTHING UNTIL THE BORDERS ARE SECURED!!!!!
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseDream Act: Fulfilling the liberal dream of collapsing the system.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWe already give illegals food stamps, healthcare, jobless benefits, education, jobs, protection from prosecution.
Now they want to give them free education (subsidized federal loans to attend school, that they won't pay back, why should they? Their identify is a fraud.)
I can't wait for the new congress to get sworn in.
Call your senators and tell them to vote against the 'nightmare act'.
About three weeks ago I was having lunch with a friend of mine who used to be a border patrol agent. I told him that I heard that the Dream Act wouldn't pass. He said, "No, that's wrong. They'll wait until the last minute and extend Bush's tax breaks for everyone. So the Republicans will get what they want. In exchange, they'll pass the Dream Act at the last second, and then everyone in Washington will run home. For all the posturing and pontificating by politicians, it's playing out exactly as my friend predicted. Republicans desperately wanted something extended by a body in which they are out of power, and the Democrats set the price. The "fix" so to speak, has been in for some time. The Omnibus bill was a threat by Reid that unless the Republicans played nice, the Bush tax cuts would expire as no one would vote for that godawful monstrosity. All of a sudden, Omnibus goes away, the tax cuts get extended and on an end of the year weekend, the Dream Act is going to be voted upon. Why do we even bother wasting our breath talking about these things? It's all planned out months in advance. We're the dupes in the audience watching the wrong hand of the magician.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI hope this so called dream act which is no more than an amnisty bill for illegals goes down and goes down in an overwhelming fashion if not look out dems the tea party is still alive and very well and growing
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThis thing MUST be stopped and over border control, business sanctions, and biometric tracking of illegals they MUST be repatriated over time.
DREAM Act is supposedly for innocents from abroad, but the first one's legalized on those coat-tails will be the parents who broke the law and brought them here.
It's all about 10's of Millions of government dependents and criminals (more Democrat voters).
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI believe U.S. deserves the global leadership of humanitarian spirits. Why not?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe Democrats are pushing this once great Republic down the sewer at warp speed. They and everyone that voted for them must be held accountable for the failure of this country.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThis isn't about securing borders. This is about taking young people who have worked hard in school, stayed out of drugs and gangs, and who have a contribution to make to our society, and rubbing their faces in the mud. Opposition to the DREAM Act is based on hatred for anyone audacious enough not to be Anglo-Saxon. OK, I exaggerate a bit, but that's the perception I get from lots of the things I read online from people who oppose it.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseDream Act, more like Nightmare for ordinary decent Americans, but I don't think it will pass, of course you can't rely on the Rino's they are the key to the whole debacle...
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseJust call your Senators and especially the Rino's let them know you are watching...