More Comments from Reid, Progressive Media Summit
On Bush’s crimes:
We have to look back. We are increasing the funding for investigations, we’re even considering having a select committee to go back and look at these things.
On EFCA:
My favorite Woody Guthrie song is "Union Made." I believewhas has happened in the last eight years has been unfair to working men and women. We’ve got card check in Nevada. The cry from business is that it takes away the secret ballot. That’s garbage. We hope to get to it before this summer. I’m a union guy.
On immigration reform:
I’ve received so many threats because I put immigration on the calendar three separate times. Comprehensive reform important to our country. Protecting our borders for the security of our people. We need to have a guest worker program. We need them in the service industry. We need to have a good fair temporary working program. We need to bring the undocumented workers out of the shadows. Let’s put them in line for citizenship. They come out of the shadows and be productive. They pay taxes. They learn English. We need to do something about employer sanction. DREAM Act. We’ve got to make sure kids can go to school.
I’ll say one thing for him, he’s a politician to the marrow of his bones.
Increasing funding for investigations?
Gee, what is there to investigate?
It’s going to be hard to get immigration reform — proper, smart, well-debated immigration reform — on the calendar this year, and it’s usually off-limits during election years. And Loud Obbs really doesn’t like Obama, and can likely rabble-rouse on the subject till kingdom come.
Reid is having his fifteen minutes of desperate wooing of the blogger vote so that he can get back to his lobbyist lunches. He’s no more forthcoming or progressive minded in his legislative agenda than he has been in his mini-chats on FDL.
Thanks Marcy.
Thanks to Oliver Wolcott for opening the digg
Environmental degradation in their home country, state monopoly energy entities in their home country, paucity of telecoms infrastructure, vast minorities in communities without public utilities of any sort and raised speaking very poor Spanish as the indigenous languages remain alive and well, commonplace integration of army with national guard to police community unrest where it occurs, multigenerational emigree resistance to Americanizing linguistically, exploitation of borderzone factory rows designed to utilize the frontier for wage disparity advantage, refusal to award full array of benefits within the US for workers with immigration status difficulties, economic pressures which add to social mores forcing teens and even preteens from schools and into work in their nations of origin: the list is long. There are nuances the US needs to address through Dept of State, but also thru EPA, and hemispheric environmental treaties, to pressure the countries who are exporting impoverished workers from oversized families; the status quo will change if US seeks to work with those countries to mitigate structural deficiencies in places where our immigrants used to live. Migrants in my state have new rights as voters in their country of origin: where is my voice in the politics of that other country? We have adopted the disadvantaged peoples, but the infrastructural pressures on these folks remain the same. This is the work of generations, not of one administration; yet, every increment the current US president adds will help ease the intensity of the pressures. There needs to be a plan on how programs will magnify after the economy rescues are effected here; essentially, without a boom in the US economy, our international aid and influence are diminished. Let’s have some longrange Democratic party planning on addressing the detriments of our own two-party see-saw, whereby Republicans profiteer, and Democrats inherit the aftermath.
A “select” committee – isn’t that special?
Meanwhile, the UN Rapporteur for torture says it’s time for the prosecutions to start.
http://harpers.org/archive/2009/01/hbc-90004250
That would be “Union Maid.”
There once was a union maid,
She never was afraid,
Of goons and ginks and company finks
And the deputy sheriff who made the raid.
She went to the union hall when a meeting it was called,
And when the Legion boys came round, She always stood her ground.
Oh you can’t scare me I’m stickin’ to the union
Stickin to the union. I’m stickin’ to the union.
Oh you can’t scare me, I’m stickin’ to the union till the day I die.
To the tune of ‘Redwing’.
I’m really counting on Sy Hersh, the Guardian, Suskind, Craig Unger, and others to get enough really juicy interviews and info that a flurry of revelations come out between now and March or April, which should put a lot of pressure on Congress to investigate, prosecute, and demand legal punishments.