There is a fascinating political shift occurring in Washington this weekend after President Barack Obama walked back from this pledge to act by the end of summer on his unilateral immigration actions and said that he will now wait until after the elections. The move has been openly discussed as an effort to support struggling Democratic candidates who are facing huge opposition to the immigration proposals and are leery of the President taking any action given his own record low polling numbers (which now stand at 38 percent according to Gallup). Various Democratic candidates have been complaining that they are losing ground due to the immigration proposal and that Obama’s pledge could further worsen the currently bleak picture for losses in Congress (and possibly losing both houses to the GOP). While the White House originally saw the proposal as a no-lose proposition and popular with the base, it has proven far less popular around the country, particularly in battleground states. Polls show far greater opposition than support for the proposal. Immigration advocates are denouncing the delay as putting “politics over people.”
The thrust of the decision is that the changes will be made but not until after voters are no longer able to express their opposition in the upcoming elections. That would seem to be a highly insulting proposition for voters, but it has not been treated as anything other than politics as usual by the media. It is a curious approach for a President who ran on the change slogan like “Time for A Change” and “Change You Can Believe In.” It is a “change you can count on [but not vote on]” approach to politics.
Two White House officials said that the move was meant to insulate Democrats from the public backlash to the immigration moves. This is in sharp contrast to the June 30th Rose Garden speech where Obama declared that he had directed Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson and Attorney General Eric Holder to give him recommendations for executive action by the end of summer and that he would “adopt those recommendations without further delay.”
My views on unilateral presidential action are well known and have little to due to the merits of these issues (Indeed, I agree with some of the President’s policies and objectives). However, what continues to amaze me is the character of modern American politics. Here you have politicians openly discussing how to avoid voter wrath by withholding action in a major area. In reality, I think some GOP leaders are doing the same thing in light of the recent defeat of Cantor and the clear success of new candidates running against the immigration proposals (while the Chamber of Congress and industry interests are pressuring for legalization as beneficial to business). I simply find it remarkable that politicians can get away with openly withholding proposals to evade a public backlash but promising that, as soon as the voters go home, they will move on the proposals. It strikes me as a tad duplicitous, but then again little makes sense to me in American politics anymore.
Source: AP
Paulette and Justice Holmes,
For now I agree, Assad = bad guy. But if he beats Obama and NATO to the punch and cleans ISIS’s clock, then I might send one those Omaha Steaks from the gift selection to him and his wife.
“If we do not awaken to the truth and open our eyes soon, then we may well find ourselves staring at a far different, far less pleasant picture before long, and by then, it will be too late to alter our reality.
Time to don a pair of Hoffman sunglasses?”
Anonymous,
That’s a very good article and one I fully agree with. The question is what truth should the citizenry be looking for? Are we to recognize the self-evident truths in the Declaration of Independence as legitimate? Are we to recognize the Constitution as a limiting or enabling document? We cannot continue to be a nation divided on the answers to those questions. Even if we can never agree on the ends of government policy, we have to agree on the means by which we achieve it.
@paulette
No, it’s not mudslinging. It’s a legitimate comment about the comment. Here we are reading about cynical politics in the year 2014, and he pops out with, “Well. . .what about Nixon!!! Huh???” Which is what, like sooo 40+ years ago?
Then, he compounds it with some narcissistic oblivion. Like the poor Americans who won’t have a job because it went to somebody who snuck in from another country don’t matter. Nope, sorry, but I stand by my comment.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
rafflaw @2:15:
“What Justice Holmes said!”
Yep. I’ll second that.
(I’ll try to get back to your other comment, rafflaw.)
What Justice Holmes said!
anonymous,
Interesting link. I would submit that most of the issues on his lists were events that could not be controlled by the media or our government, but the media could sure choose which ones to cover.
As to the claim that the is delay in a decision is somehow hiding the issue from the voters is interesting, but confusing. If Obama was hiding it from the voters, why would he make public the decision to delay the moves on immigration? If he had made the moves that are expected, then he would have been skewered for making unilateral decisions. If the so-called immigration policies are so disliked, then the Right should have little problem in gaining seats in both houses, no matter what Obama does or doesn’t do. The real problem in all of this is the money used to buy the decision makers, not when they make the decision.
Assad= bad guy
OPPOSITION TO ASSAD= mostly bad guys
Result: the US needs to stay out of it!
No policing all sense, no apparent principles, very little loyalty and no spine. Of course when the corporations call he is all competence and can do but not for humans!
Glen ~
Assad = bad guy.
Might not be a bad idea to delay action on immigration. To many ISIS wannabe’s
running around. Yeah, some from Central and South America joined ISIS.
It’s confusing and I don’t blame Obama for a job I wouldn’t touch with a ten foot pole.
In the meantime, Syria’s President Assad wacked an ISIS stronghold today. Good guy, bad guy?
and so the mud slinging begins…
@randyjet
OMG! Are you really digging up stuff from last century to whine about??? And to defend our sorry, lousy CURRENT President? When was the last time you had a new thought??? ROTFLMAO!!!
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
It strikes me as a tad duplicitous, but then again little makes sense to me in American politics anymore. -Jonathan Turley
Just wait ’til you get wind of the rest of the story. In the meantime, distractions abound. To that point, one might want to read John Whitehead’s posting this week. (One used to see hard-hitting, incisive postings here, as well, but they’re fewer in number now.)
https://www.rutherford.org/publications_resources/john_whiteheads_commentary/the_american_delusion_distracted_diverted_and_insulated_from_the_grim_reali
But, hey, it’s easy to see the world as we want to see it, until we’re forced to see it as it really is.
I think this is a call to citizens, one of many, to take a hard look at who we are. The people we keep picking to be our “leaders” are cruel, ignorant, lying bast*Rds who work for a small group of people bent on world domination. What keeps us from understanding who they are? What keeps us supporting such people?
We can’t get anywhere until we ask these questions of ourselves. We need to act with intelligence and integrity. We know what the political class is doing is wrong. Yet many people will support politicians bad actions, no matter what. Why?
We are the only ones who can make things better. Everything is at stake. This isn’t a red team/blue team sporting event. This is for real. Things are very bad and we can’t just keep playing reality as if it was a spectacle. We have to care more about each other than that.
This problem is not unique to American politics. Here’s a quote from a Guardian article commenting on AU PM Tony Abbot:
“The question now is whether it is possible for a leader, and a party, to recover after breaching the trust of the electorate, whether voters, faced with an underwhelming opposition, can be persuaded to take untrustworthiness as a given.”
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/04/-sp-tony-abbott-one-year-on-how-trust-won-and-lost
Some of the generals make as much as these morons. And not everyone is a chicken sh*t. Many are though.
This is typical for Obama, he illegal set off Obamacare requirements until after the election, so why not this. And he has now said ISIS is the problem of the next President. All we can expect from “Hope and Change”.
I guess that Prof Turley forgets about Nixon and his “secret” plan to end the Vietnam war, or his actual TREASON in conducting negotiations with a foreign head of state against the US. I think that was of much larger consequence, especially since I and a good number of my friends were in the line of fire.
Announcing one policy, then backing down a few weeks later – It doesn’t matter where you stand on immigration – he has managed to offend everybody. Here we though he was a slippery politician. What a relief. He is no politician – Clearly the man has no political sense at all.
When troops are paid as much as these morons I will listen. Everyone in politics is a Chicken Sh*t… IMO
FOX News will report on this and call it what it is. I suspect it will go over the heads of the rest.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter