Sunday Funnies

Parker kicks off

(Mayor Annise) Parker greeted, hugged and chatted with many of the more than 100 supporters and volunteers who gathered under the shade of a white tent swollen with the sounds of 1980s dance hits, clicking cameras and intermittent cheers. The mayor even put down a few moves between photos and handshakes.

Former City Attorney Ben Hall has announced his intent to oppose her, but Parker dismissed his campaign at the event.

"I've been asked if I have an opponent," Parker said, members of the crowd yelling back, "No."

"I have an opponent, but I don't have competition," she said to louder cheers.

Just as it was in March, that is precisely where things stand with six months to go before election day. That's also what the polling reflects (such as it is). Update, 5/15: The conserva-freaks circulated that link around and turned the tables on the mayor, and that was after she sent out a blast e-mail asking her supporters to vote. Ya gotta hate it when that happens.

Ben Hall's Gene Locke strategy is still in a holding pattern somewhere over IAH, and Don Cook is ... well, garnering the same amount of attention he traditionally has.

If the mayor only comes in for criticism as harsh as this, then it's going to be smooth sailing for her. The race to replace Helena Brown and the council seats being vacated due to term limits will be more competitive (and interesting). Charles also has a similar take on yesterday's pep rally.

Update: Worthy of note is that a perennial Green candidate for mayor in a large Texas city finished second -- with 13% of the vote and ahead of four others -- to a very popular Democratic incumbent just yesterday. Mr. Cook would exceed conventional expectations if he did half as well.

"Impeach Obama!"

"We're up to at least fifteen good reasons!"

#15.

Just existing: When a man told Rep. Michele Bachmann that President Obama should be impeached just because, Bachmann replied, “Well, I’ll tell you, I’ll tell you, I agree, I agree.” Texas Republican Michael Burgess told a Tea Party group in 2011 that he would push to impeach Obama for just generally being liberal. When a reporter asked him later what the charges would be, Burgess said he wasn’t sure, but said “it needs to happen” so Republicans can tie up Obama’s legislative agenda.

That right there is the real reason. The only reason.

Gawker explains WTF all this Benghazi shit is about. The big finish...

Okay, so, what's the fucking deal?

As befits a scandal as overdetermined as this one, there are a bunch of fucking deals. There's the deal where the State Department actually did fail to protect its employees, and should be held accountable, and only barely has been.

There's the deal where Republicans are trying to kneecap Hillary Clinton in advance of an anticipated 2016 run ("at the very least, Mrs. Clinton should never hold high office again," Paul writes in the Washington Times yesterday).

There's the deal where this is a sad, late mulligan on Romney's response, a little proto-revisionism to suggest that his doomed and incompetent campaign was defeated through the perfidy of the White House, rather than its own pointlessness and awfulness.

There's the deal where House Republicans and Fox News are trapped in a tight feedback loop, like two best friends with inexplicable inside jokes told in Oppish.

And there's the usual deal where Obama is a Muslim and he did 9/11, or whatever.

Three more years of this. Unless the sane voters can be summoned to the polls to make some changes in the composition of the Congress in 2014, and then just a year and a half.

Immigration bill thwarts conservative amendments

So far.

A landmark bill backed by President Barack Obama to overhaul the nation's immigration system survived unscathed on Thursday during the first day of consideration by a divided Senate Judiciary Committee.

On bipartisan votes, the panel rejected conservatives' attempts to thwart implementation of a centerpiece of the bill - a pathway to U.S. citizenship for millions of undocumented immigrants.
By day's end leading Democratic and Republican senators said the committee had improved the bill.

The panel, composed of 10 Democrats and eight Republicans, accepted 21 relatively modest amendments that focus largely on border security and increased congressional oversight. All but one amendment were agreed to on bipartisan votes.

Eleven other amendments were rejected or withdrawn, many of them Republican bids to bolster border security in ways that went far beyond the steps spelled out in the bill, while also delaying or even killing proposals to legalize undocumented immigrants.

Via jobsanger (more pessimistic than me about the bill's prospects), here's some of those eleven.

1. Undocumented immigrants can never become citizens. “No person who is or has previously been willfully present in the United States will [sic] not in lawful status…shall be eligible for United States citizenship.” Offered by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX).
2. Mandatory DNA testing. Registered provisional immigrant applicants must submit a DNA sample to the Department of Justice to compare against the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) at the FBI. Offered by Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT).
3. Zero assistance. Would prohibit undocumented immigrants who earn provisional legal status from applying for permanent residence if they qualify for state means-tested assistance, the supplemental nutrition assistance program (SNAP), the temporary assistance for needy families program (TANF), or supplemental security income benefits (SSI). Offered by Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL).
4. Bans humanitarian travel. Immigrants who are in provisional legal status but have to go back to their home countries for a humanitarian reason (to visit a sick relative, for instance) would be prohibited from re-entering the United States. Currently, the provisional legal status includes an authorization for travel.Offered by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA).
5. Guts family re-unification. The green card distribution for some foreigners relies on a point allocation system in which a certain number of points must be accumulated before those individuals can qualify for a merit-based visa. This amendment would eliminate points for siblings of U.S. citizens and points for individuals from low-sending countries from counting towards merit-based immigrant visas. Offered by Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL).
6. In-person interviews for 11 million immigrants. Sure to slow down the process time for 11 million immigrants, an in-person interview would be required to determine one’s eligibility requirements for provisional legal status. Offered by Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL).

While the Democrats -- together with Republicans Jeff Flake and Lindsey "Begging for a Primary" Graham -- deflected the worst of it, it looks as if Charles Schumer -- charged with sheperding this legislation through the Judiciary Committee -- is going to let the gays get thrown under the bus in order to get the bill done.

John Aravosis at AMERICAblog has been all over this particular issue. There's going to be some of that "perfect is the enemy of the good" rationalizing once the markup is completed and the bill passes out of committee to the full Senate.

Stace's Two Cents has some good links and a report from his and hermina Toni's Brown Bag conversation yesterday at lunch.

Related reading...

Study: Immigration bill would help Social Security

More Than A Million Additional Latinos Voted In 2012 Than In 2008