NDN Blog

"Base to Bush: It's Over"

Conservative author and commentator Byron York weighs in today with a true must read.  It starts:

Let's say you're a Republican president, a bit more than midway through your second term. You're scrambling to salvage what you can of a deeply unpopular war, you're facing a line of subpoenas from Democrats in Congress and your poll ratings are in the basement. What do you do?

You estrange the very Republicans whose backing you need the most.

That's precisely what President Bush has managed to accomplish during the two big political developments of recent weeks: the commutation of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby's prison sentence and the defeat of comprehensive immigration reform. But the president's problems with the GOP base go beyond those awkward headlines. Republicans aren't mad at Bush for the same reasons that Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) and the devotees of MoveOn.org are; there's no new anti-Bush consensus among left and right. No, conservatives are unhappy because the president allied himself with Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) over an immigration deal that leaned too far toward amnesty for illegal immigrants. They're unhappy because Bush has shown little interest in fiscal responsibility and limited government. And they're unhappy, above all, because he hasn't won the war in Iraq.

All of this has left Republicans saying, at least among themselves, something blunt and devastating: It's over.

"Bush fatigue has set in," declares one plugged-in GOP activist.

"We're ready for a new president," says a former state Republican Party official in the South.

"There was affection," opines a conservative strategist based well beyond the Beltway, "but now they're in divorce court."

Read the rest here in today's Post. 

Breakdown shows the need for a fixed immigration system

An article in the New York Times today highlights, once again, the broken state of our immigration system. At issue is a breakdown in communication between the State Department and the Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) on an announcement that it would issue green cards to legal immigrants on temporary visas. Those applying, who "had obtained federal certification that no American workers were available for the jobs they hold," were then told that no visas were available. From the article:

A national association of immigration lawyers said yesterday that it would bring a class-action lawsuit against the federal immigration agency for refusing to accept thousands of applications for work-based permanent visas from highly skilled immigrants who were encouraged by the government to apply.

The hopes of thousands of foreigners who have been working legally in the United States were unexpectedly raised and then abruptly dashed as a result of the disagreement. They had responded last month to an announcement that permanent residency visas would be available, but on Monday learned there were none.

The immigration lawyers said the about-face by the immigration system had no precedent in at least three decades of legal practice, and said that it violated the immigration agency’s regulations.

Corridos use familiar sounds to define sentiment

We at NDN know the value of the corrido. We used this culturally rich and powerful medium in our song "How Little They Know Us", which was played in 2006 during the immigration debate under our Demócratas Unidos media campaign.

Today's New York Times reinforces the corrido's effectiveness by showing how, recently, they are serving as an outlet for those frustrated with the tone of the immigration debate. From the article:

While watching the immigration marches that day, Mr. Garcia said he felt compelled to put “our story” to music, scratching out the words over several weeks, right up to the day the folklife center researchers came calling.

“I feel we need to write out stories and this was a big part of our story here,” he said. “Corridos used to be like newspapers. Well, maybe, they still should be.”

LiveEarth concerts air tomorrow night

Just a reminder that tomorrow night, Live Earth concerts from eight cities will be broadcast from 8 to 11 pm (EST) on NBC. For those unaware of this groundbreaking event, "Live Earth marks the beginning of a multi-year campaign led by the Alliance for Climate Protection, The Climate Group and other international organizations to drive individuals, corporations and governments to take action to solve global warming. Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore is the Chair of the Alliance and Partner of Live Earth."

We urge you to learn more about this campaign by visiting liveearth.org or algore.com. You can also watch Mr. Gore discuss the upcoming events on CNN this morning.

Finally, we encourage you to take the Live Earth pledge, which will help you discover easy and unobtrusive ways to personally help combat climate change.

Video of "The Progressive Politics of the Millenial Generation" now available

For those of you who haven't yet had a chance to read NPI's new report, The Progressive Politics of the Millennial Generation, a video of the report's Washington, DC release event is now available:

If you don't have the time to watch the full video, you can also watch only Simon's introduction, Pete Leyden's powerpoint presentation, Heather Smith's discussion of voting data for young people, Farouk Olu Aregbe talk about founding "One Million Strong for Barack", or the Q&A session at the end.

UPDATE: Surge in U.S. Citizenship Applications

NBC Nightly News did a piece last night on the rise in U.S. citizenship applications, which has been a widely covered issue of late. Click here for video of their coverage.

Our broken politics

The Bush era has done great damage to Washington's ability to meet important challenges.  We know the story - big mistakes, challenges not met, extraordinary betrayal of the public trust.  In 2006 voters asked for a new chapter in the American story.  What we now know well into 2007 that this new chapter will not come quickly.  It will take years and a great deal of work to move past this disapointing and damaging era of politics. 

There are many examples of how Bushism will be with us for years to come.  The right-leaning Roberts court.  The continued erosion of American support for globalization and trade liberalization.  A Middle East more difficult than before.  But to me the most graphic example of our hard it is going to be bring the parties and the American people together to solve our common problems is what happened with the immigration bill last week. 

We have written about this often so I wont repeat other than to say that if anything was to pass in this Congress it was the immigration bill.  It had broad and deep bi-partisan support.  It passed the Republican controlled Senate last year.  It had a remarkable coalition behind it, including leaders of labor, the Catholic Church, business and immigrant rights groups.  It was supported by the most powerful leaders in Washington including the President, John McCain, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.  And yet it still didnt pass. 

For progressives, we have several tasks ahead.  First to stay focused on solving problems not playing politics.  We need to get things done that improve the lives of average Americans.  Second, and perhaps most importantly, is that we cannot let these disapointing years cause us to doubt the power and goodness of the American experiment itself.  We have overcome much greater challenges before.  And though the array of challenges in front of us are great, and urgent, at our very core we must believe that they can met and tackled with the same sense of can-do optimism as this remarkable nation has met similar times of trial and trouble in our past.  This is no time for retreat, for withdrawal, for accepting the limited and cramped vision of the Bush era.   Our task now must be to re-imagine the goodness, and greatness, of America, and apply our creed and values to the newly emergent challenges of this new century. 

It is not the day that it is dark.  It has been our response to it.  And that we have the power to change.  But it is not going to be quick, easy, inexpensive and clean.  We have years of hard work ahead of us to move America beyond the broken politics of the Bush era.

Rising fees and immigration debate lead to increased naturalization applications

Naturalization applications are on the rise according to this article from the New York Times. Citing the imminent rise in processing fees and the immigration debate as the reasons for the rise, the article reveals that many are now applying for citizenship so their voice can be heard, and felt, in government. From the article:

For many legal immigrants, worry about their futures in the United States turned into action after an announcement on Jan. 31 by Citizenship and Immigration Services that it would increase application fees.

Under the new fees, which take effect on July 30, it will cost $675 to become a naturalized citizen, up 69 percent from $400.

Immigrants have also been mobilized to press naturalization applications by a television and radio campaign that Univision, the national Spanish-language network, began in January in California.

The campaign, promoted by personalities like Eduardo Sotelo, a radio host in Los Angeles known as El Piolín, or Tweety Bird, has directed immigrants to 350 workshop centers run by churches and other community organizations in 22 cities. At the centers, immigrants receive English lessons and advice on meeting requirements and filling out forms.

One radio listener was Ángel Iván Álvarez, 24, a legal immigrant from Mexico who said he had never thought of becoming a citizen until last week when the Senate bill failed.

UPDATE: This Miami Herald editorial serves as a follow-up, showing how we need to make progress even though comprehensive reform suffered.

The Times takes the new Court to task

The NYTimes reflects on the new Roberts Court this morning with a strong and well-argued editorial this morning.  An excerpt:

It has been decades since the most privileged members of society — corporations, the wealthy, white people who want to attend school with other whites — have had such a successful Supreme Court term. Society’s have-nots were not the only losers. The basic ideals of American justice lost as well.

It is very much worth reading in its entirety.

Joe Wilson blasts Bush on Libby commutation

Former Ambassador Joe Wilson takes Bush to task on CNN for commuting Scooter Libby's sentence. Check out the video below:

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