Posted by: Sister Toldjah on March 31, 2006 at 11:13 pm
DNC Chair Howard Dean is accusing the Republican party of ’scapegoating’ Hispanics in the debate over immigration form. The House proposal on combatting the problem is one drawn up by “right wing extremists” according to Dean … same ol’ song and dance with the DNC doing the dividing and demagoguing yet accusing the other side of being guilty of it:
OAKLAND, Calif. – Democratic Party chief Howard Dean accused President Bush and the Republican Party on Friday of exploiting the immigration issue for political gain by scapegoating Hispanics.
Dean and Bush agree on the legislation at the heart of the debate. Both support a Senate bill that would expand guest-worker programs for an estimated 400,000 immigrants each year.
However, at a speech in an Oakland union hall, the 2004 Democratic presidential candidate sought to tie Bush to a much tougher House bill that would tighten borders and make it a crime to be in the United States illegally or to offer aid to illegal immigrants. Bush does not back the House bill.
“This is a nonsensical proposal put out by far right-wingers in the Republican Party who have been endorsed for re-election by the president of the United States,” Dean said. “The president has a moral obligation to rein in the right-wing extremists in his party and stop this divisive rhetoric about immigrants.”
Dean devoted much of his short speech here to the immigration debate, which has taken center stage in Washington this election year and touched off mass demonstrations elsewhere. More than 500,000 immigration-rights activists marched in downtown Los Angeles on Saturday, largely to protest the House measure.
Bush has spent his political career courting Hispanic voters, the nation’s fastest-growing voting bloc, and he has helped double the GOP’s share of the Hispanic vote since 2000.
Nevertheless, Dean accused Bush and fellow Republicans of demagoguery in the immigration debate, saying it fit with a long-standing pattern. He cited the president’s opposition to the University of Michigan’s affirmative-action program and Bush’s decision to “pick on” homosexuals – an apparent reference to the gay marriage issue in the 2004 election.
“In 2006 it’s immigrants. That’s what their strategy is on the Republican side: divide people, scapegoat them, set them aside, point the finger at them,” Dean said. “Well, that may be good for the Republican Party, but it’s bad for America, and we’re not going to do that.”
Isn’t this just typical? Finally, a real debate is ongoing about what to do regarding the immigration problem and what does Howard Dean do? Demagogues the issue by accusing the Republicans of right wing extremism and ‘divisiveness’.
I wrote this about Dean and the rest of the Democratic party shortly after Hurricane Katrina hit and the discussions about race that came along with it:
The Democrats want to ensure that black Democrats stay Democrats, so they peddle this line about Republican racism ad nauseam to score political points, thereby cementing it in the brains of black Democrats. Republicans fall all over themselves to make something they said that wasn’t wrong to begin with right in order to appease the media, Democrats, and the black community due to their sensitivity on the issue.
This isn’t to say that there aren’t racist Republicans. There are. But by far, as the quotes above show you, the true race baiters in this country are not Republicans, but Democrats, and they do it because they can’t afford to lose black votes. It’s shameless, and as the editors at The Unalienable Right blog also note, it’s despicable as well.
The same rule applies here regarding Hispanics – only Hispanics don’t vote 92% Democrat like the black community does. Democrats still get more Hispanic votes than Republicans, but in 2004 the President Bush did “significantly better” with the Hispanic vote than he did in 2000, according to this Washington Post article and so did the rest of the Republican party.
Rest assured that the Democrats know this, and they are working hard to turn the tide against Bush-endorsed House Republicans running for election or re-election this fall.
This is business as usual for the DNC when it comes to their key voting blocs. They’d rather demagogue racial and cultural issues by falsely accusing their opponents of being ‘divisive and insensitive right wing extremists’ and ‘racists’ instead of offering real solutions. Dems like to call themselves “progressives” but if this type of tactic on their part doesn’t demonstrate regressiveness I don’t know what does.
Related Toldjah So posts:
Velvet Lair
Once again, ST, you hit it exasctly right. The Dems are clueless; all they can do is point fingers and accuse and blame.
Another curious point… How many of the liberals who are the “champions” (in their small minds) of the poor and downtrodden have ever been poor.
First of all politics “ain’t beanbag”, that does not mean that it should be prcticed like Abramoff and Delay, practice it, but if your involved in politics you are going to take your lumps. The Left always takes it’s lumps, but the last 6 years have been vile and sinful and the “wages of sin, is death”. Sensenbrenner, is a racist and Tancredo, is a xenophobe. If their positions hurt the Republican Party, with Hispanics, they should change their racist, xenphobic positions. The only people demagoguing on this issue is Big business. It’s too bad for your side that Big business is also identified as the Republican Party. This issue looks like a Gordian Knot for the Right. Peace
The politics of brown people have gone from david duke to tancredo to the house GOP leadership.
good show.
Face it, George Bush and the Republicans could start crapping gold and peeing free gasoline and Dean would complain and whine about it.
Democrats, masters of “no” theater.
as much as steve likes to try and keep smearing “big” business as the problem, it is not big business that are hiring illegals as he seems to want to keep lying about. It is small business operators who are trying to cut costs of thier labor.
Remember when they keep telling you illegal immigrants are doing the jobs no one else wants to (which is incorrect also)? Well how many “big” business’s are doing jobs no one wants to?
Again steve, quit giving lies as facts.
>It is small business operators who are
>trying to cut costs of thier labor.
As I said on my own blog: “There’s no such thing as a job American workers won’t do — only a wage American employers won’t pay.” The only reason illegals accept those wages is that they have no legal status; they can’t complain or strike or look for a better job. Give them legal status, and employers will have to pay standard wages to keep them anyway. The whole thing is a sham.
CavalierX, is correct, but we need to take on NAFTA and CAFTA. These Treaty’s export well paying jobs and replace them with either no job or low paying jobs with no benefits. It’s time to get rid of NAFTA and CAFTA and punish any business who hires undocumented workers. It is also time to raise the minimum wage to $17.30 an hour and exempt the first $36,000 in wages from Federal taxes. Peace
>we need to take on NAFTA and CAFTA
Yeah, we can’t allow any of that free trade stuff to go on. Why, that leads to competition, the bane of Socialism. Next thing you know, people are paying less for goods, foreign markets are opening, and they get into capitalism, which leads to democracy… and the dream of a worldwide nanny government goes right down the tubes. Can’t have that happen, right, steve?
>punish any business who hires
>undocumented workers
First thing steve’s EVER said that makes any sense, I think. We should all mark this day on our calendars.
>It is also time to raise the minimum
>wage to $17.30
Well, that “moment of clarity” wasn’t destined to last very long, I suppose.
Your big into making capitalist, right CavalierX? Well, lets begin at home by raising the standard of living for Americans by increasing the minimum wage and putting more money into their paychecks. If people overseas want to become capitalists, let them create their own jobs. I get pretty tired of large corporations shuting down factories that were paying workers a good wage with benifits, to set up overseas where they pay the new help $5 a day and no benifits. Nobody can beat an American worker except for .63 cent an hour labor from overseas. Junk NAFTA and CAFTA, and bring jobs back to America. Peace
Damn steve are you ignorant of economics or what?
First I would like to know where you come up with the exact figure of $17.30/hr for minimum wage. Why not $20/hr or $25/hr?
Second, Minimum wage is supposed to be the minimum starting wage for a unskilled worker.
If liberals assign your type of thinking to minimum wage you will bankrupt America within 2 years.
Why do I say that?
Because Raising minumum wage up that much will guarantee that the following will happen:
* Big Business will move thier base of operations oversea, and whatever production work that needs to be done will move with them. Unemployment in America will scyrocket as plants and businesses close thier doors to more friendly business orientated countries. Instead of cutting outsourcing you would force the biggest push for businesses to outsource jobs that America has ever seen. If you want outsourcing to stop, you have to make conditions more favorable for a business to stay and keep jobs here than somewhere else, which means tax cut incentives for increased jobs, plants, expansion, ect.
* Those that cannot afford the move (smaller businesses) will cut thier work force, low end jobs in companies will be be cut, individuals with alot more experience will be expected to take on 2 to 3 times the amount of work they normally would because of the cutbacks. This would also kill off many chances of new graduates from College, let alone just a high school degree, in finding any worthwhile job.
* Contracting will be used more. They will higher a select few individuals to do a certain job for a few weeks and when it is done they will not renew or higheer the contractee, who will be back out there looking for another job.
* Products and goods would skyrocket to help recover the cost of a massive increase in minimum wage. So you would get paid more but prices for goods and services would most likely triple to help recoup the costs.
I am all for raising the minimum wage up some, and I believe their is something going in Michigan to raise it to $7.50 I think. I have no problem with that.
Also if minumum wage is raised, even by the amount I mentioned just above, do you think companies should give raises to all employyees working more than minimum wage if a minimum raise hike came about?
Meaning if I make $10/hr and they raise minimum wage to $7.50, do you think I should get a bump in pay just as much as the minimum wage did?
If not, how fair is that to the person who has worked hard to get to that point only to have some fresh new hirer with no experience come in and get paid just about as much as you have that have worked and have more experience?
If we all made $20 per hour nobody would want Kia’s anymore. They’d all want Toyota’s. And guess what? The demand for Toyota’s will increase but the supply can only increase so much per year so the COST for Toyota’s will go up quickly.
There is a point to this comment Steve. It’s not just Toyota’s I’m talking about. Everything will go up in price dramatically and the people who are making minimum wage wil lbe able to afford just as much as they used to be able to afford. So they don’t gain. But… will someone be hurt? Yes. Those people living on fixed income or saved retirement funds. Thier funds will NOT go as far as they used to.
As usual Steve your solution would hurt more, cause more misery and probably more death as those people who are elderly and living on those funds wouldn’t be able to afford to live.
Let’s see, the price of gas almost tripled in about 3 years, yet everyone seems to still be driving. The world is very elastic and it can afford anything you ask of of, within reason. A Universal Health Care System is affordable and moral. Remember it isn’t any fun to run an empty planet.Peace
>A Universal Health Care System is
>affordable and moral
If you want to wait five years for operations and tests that take five months here in America, feel free to emigrate to Canada or Great Britain, where at least the people will understand youwhen you complain about the shoddy health service.
Right CavalierX. In England, the average wait for open heart surgery is about 32 weeks. You can get it the next day if you need it here.
That’s the way universal health care provided by the government works, they ration care by massive delays, hoping you’ll die before they have to treat you.
Also, in a system like that, the “coin of the realm” for getting better service is position and influence. In the US system, it’s money. Guess which is the most fair? Money, people can choose to get insurance, they can choose to pay for medical car instead of other items, they can earn money, but you can’t easily earn influence and position, that depends on who you are and who you know.
All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.
Steve wrote, “Let’s see, the price of gas almost tripled in about 3 years, yet everyone seems to still be driving.
Not everyone. I started taking the bus myself.
So. Steve is wrong again.