was only a few light-minutes away.
US air strikes in Syria driving anti-Assad groups to support Isis
Fighters from the Free Syrian Army and several Islamic military groups say Isis is gaining allies or truces due to US bombings
By Mona Mahmood
November 25, 2014
Lagoon nebula
was only a few light-minutes away.
Europa
Europa's Stunning Surface The puzzling, fascinating surface of Jupiter’s icy moon Europa looms large in this newly-reprocessed color view, made from images taken by NASA's Galileo spacecraft in the late 1990s. This is the color view of Europa from Galileo that shows the largest portion of the moon's surface at the highest resolution.
The view was previously released as a mosaic with lower resolution and strongly enhanced color
. To create this new version, the images were assembled into a realistic color view of the surface that approximates how Europa would appear to the human eye.
The scene shows the stunning diversity of Europa’s surface geology. Long, linear cracks and ridges crisscross the surface, interrupted by regions of disrupted terrain where the surface ice crust has been broken up and re-frozen into new patterns.
Color variations across the surface are associated with differences in geologic feature type and location. For example, areas that appear blue or white contain relatively pure water ice, while reddish and brownish areas include non-ice components in higher concentrations. The polar regions, visible at the left and right of this view, are noticeably bluer than the more equatorial latitudes, which look more white. This color variation is thought to be due to differences in ice grain size in the two locations.
Images taken through near-infrared, green and violet filters have been combined to produce this view. The images have been corrected for light scattered outside of the image, to provide a color correction that is calibrated by wavelength. Gaps in the images have been filled with simulated color based on the color of nearby surface areas with similar terrain types.
This global color view consists of images acquired by the Galileo Solid-State Imaging (SSI) experiment on the spacecraft's first and fourteenth orbits through the Jupiter system, in 1995 and 1998, respectively. Image scale is 1 mile (1.6 kilometers) per pixel. North on Europa is at right.
November 24, 2014
US air strikes
US air strikes in Syria are encouraging anti-regime fighters to forge alliances with or even defect to Islamic State (Isis), according to a series of interviews conducted by the Guardian.
Fighters from the Free Syrian Army (FSA) and Islamic military groups are joining forces with Isis, which has gained control of swaths of Syria and Iraq and has beheaded six western hostages in the past few months.
Some brigades have transferred their allegiance, while others are forming tactical alliances or truces. Support among civilians also appears to be growing in some areas as a result of resentment over US-led military action.
“Isis now is like a magnet that attracts large numbers of Muslims,” said Abu Talha, who defected from the FSA a few months ago and is now in negotiations with other fighters from groups such as the al-Nusra Front to follow suit.
Assam Murad, a fighter from a 600-strong dissident FSA brigade near Homs said: “There’s no way we would fight Isis after the US military campaign against them.”
A third man, Abu Zeid, the commander of an FSA brigade near Idlib and a defector from President Bashar al-Assad’s army, said: “All the locals here wonder why the US coalition never came to rescue them from Assad’s machine guns, but run to fight Isis when it took a few pieces of land. We were in a robust fight against Isis for confiscating our liberated areas, but now, if we are not in an alliance, we are in a truce with them.”
These and other Syrian fighters told the Guardian in interviews by phone and Skype that the US campaign is turning the attitudes of Syrian opposition groups and fighters in favour of Isis. Omar Waleed, an FSA fighter in Hama, north of Damascus, said: “I’m really scared that eventually most of the people will join Isis out of their disappointment with the US administration. Just have a look on social media websites, and you can see lots of people and leaders are turning to the side of Isis.
“We did not get any weapons from the US to fight the regime for the last three years. Only now US weapons arrived for fighting Isis.”
Abu Talha said he had joined the FSA after being released from prison in an amnesty Assad granted shortly after the Syrian uprising began in March 2011, and became commander of the Ansar al-Haq brigade in Ghouta, an eastern suburb of Damascus. He became disillusioned with the FSA, however, believing it was a tool of foreign intelligence services and poor in combat. After four senior fighters in his brigade were fatally wounded a few months ago, he defected to Isis.
“Since that day, I vowed not to fight under a flag bearing the mark of the FSA even for a second. I looked around for truthful jihadis, to fight by their side. I could not find any better than the jihadis of Isis. I told my fighters: ‘I’m going to join Isis, you are free to follow me or choose your own way’,” he said.
More than 200 of his fellow fighters also declared their allegiance to Isis, a move met with opprobrium by other FSA brigades and civilians. Then the US and its allies began a campaign of air strikes.
“All those who were cursing and attacking us for joining Isis came to pledge their loyalty to Isis. A couple were FSA commanders, others were members of Islamic brigades. Even ordinary people now demand to be governed by Isis,” Abu Talha said.
Only a small number openly declared their new allegiance, he added. “Large brigades in Idlib, Aleppo, Derra, Qalamoun and south Damascus have pledged loyalty to Isis in secret. Many senior leaders of brigades in Syria are in talks with us now to get together and fight as a united force against the US aggression,” he said. His claims cannot be independently verified.
Murad, a fighter with the FSA’s 600-strong al-Ribat brigade near Homs, said an offer three months ago by the US-backed Hazem movement to supply his unit with advanced weaponry if it joined the fight against Isis was turned down.
“We rejected this attractive offer, even though we are in great need not only of weapons but food. There is no way that we would fight Isis after the US military campaign against them,” he said.
He and his fellow fighters were awaiting the arrival of Isis militants in Homs, he added. “The moment Isis fighters touch the soil of the Homs countryside, we will be the first to fight with them at the front. This [US-led] military coalition is not against Isis, it is against entire Islam.”
Fighters from Islamic militias are also joining forces with Isis. In Idlib, in north-west Syria, the Jaish al-Mujahideen army, al-Sham brigade, Ahrar al-Sham brigade and al-Nusra Front were all in conflict against Isis earlier this year. Now they are calling for an alliance. More than 1,000 al-Nusra Front fighters in the area joined forces with Isis in a single week in August, according to Ali Sa’eed, a spokesman for the FSA revolutionary command in Idlib.
Abu Talha said he was in talks with al-Nusra Front leaders, “asking them to proclaim their allegiance to Isis and be one hand to defeat Bashar [al-Assad] and all the tyrants in the world”.
“There are senior leaders of al-Nusra Front who are waiting for the zero hour to unite with us. They are more conscious now of the great risks that lie behind the new US crusade against Muslims and jihadis,” he said.
According to those interviewed, civilians as well as fighters are turning towards Isis. The group is gaining support because it implements social measures and increases security, according to Abu Talha.
“We opened 57 free public restaurants in Raqqa city, which provide three meals a day for any resident to foil any claim by a looter that he had to steal in order to feed his children. We provide free fuel to residents as well.” The implementation of sharia law had led to a huge fall in the crime rate in Raqqa and other cities controlled by Isis, he said.
In Ghouta, near Damascus, the al-Nusra Front is the dominant force, but it has lost ground to a few hundred Isis fighters, according to locals. “I can assure you the day Isis declares they are coming to Ghouta, all the people and brigades will be with them out of our dismay and disappointment,” said Fadhil Ali, a restaurant worker. “We can’t wait for the day we have Isis in Ghouta.”
Isis does not have enough weapons for the number of foreign and local jihadis wanting to join its ranks, Abu Talha said. “Jihadis in Algeria, Morocco and Yemen are declaring their allegiance to Isis. Soon we will be in Gaza and then in Iran. People are starting to be aware that Isis is defending the Sunnis.”
The growth in support for Isis was inevitable, he said. “People are suffocated and cannot stand any more. Even when you push a small cat to a corner, it will scratch you. They are slaughtering and killing us. Why should we be silent about it?”
Fighters from the Free Syrian Army (FSA) and Islamic military groups are joining forces with Isis, which has gained control of swaths of Syria and Iraq and has beheaded six western hostages in the past few months.
Some brigades have transferred their allegiance, while others are forming tactical alliances or truces. Support among civilians also appears to be growing in some areas as a result of resentment over US-led military action.
“Isis now is like a magnet that attracts large numbers of Muslims,” said Abu Talha, who defected from the FSA a few months ago and is now in negotiations with other fighters from groups such as the al-Nusra Front to follow suit.
Assam Murad, a fighter from a 600-strong dissident FSA brigade near Homs said: “There’s no way we would fight Isis after the US military campaign against them.”
A third man, Abu Zeid, the commander of an FSA brigade near Idlib and a defector from President Bashar al-Assad’s army, said: “All the locals here wonder why the US coalition never came to rescue them from Assad’s machine guns, but run to fight Isis when it took a few pieces of land. We were in a robust fight against Isis for confiscating our liberated areas, but now, if we are not in an alliance, we are in a truce with them.”
These and other Syrian fighters told the Guardian in interviews by phone and Skype that the US campaign is turning the attitudes of Syrian opposition groups and fighters in favour of Isis. Omar Waleed, an FSA fighter in Hama, north of Damascus, said: “I’m really scared that eventually most of the people will join Isis out of their disappointment with the US administration. Just have a look on social media websites, and you can see lots of people and leaders are turning to the side of Isis.
“We did not get any weapons from the US to fight the regime for the last three years. Only now US weapons arrived for fighting Isis.”
Abu Talha said he had joined the FSA after being released from prison in an amnesty Assad granted shortly after the Syrian uprising began in March 2011, and became commander of the Ansar al-Haq brigade in Ghouta, an eastern suburb of Damascus. He became disillusioned with the FSA, however, believing it was a tool of foreign intelligence services and poor in combat. After four senior fighters in his brigade were fatally wounded a few months ago, he defected to Isis.
“Since that day, I vowed not to fight under a flag bearing the mark of the FSA even for a second. I looked around for truthful jihadis, to fight by their side. I could not find any better than the jihadis of Isis. I told my fighters: ‘I’m going to join Isis, you are free to follow me or choose your own way’,” he said.
More than 200 of his fellow fighters also declared their allegiance to Isis, a move met with opprobrium by other FSA brigades and civilians. Then the US and its allies began a campaign of air strikes.
“All those who were cursing and attacking us for joining Isis came to pledge their loyalty to Isis. A couple were FSA commanders, others were members of Islamic brigades. Even ordinary people now demand to be governed by Isis,” Abu Talha said.
Only a small number openly declared their new allegiance, he added. “Large brigades in Idlib, Aleppo, Derra, Qalamoun and south Damascus have pledged loyalty to Isis in secret. Many senior leaders of brigades in Syria are in talks with us now to get together and fight as a united force against the US aggression,” he said. His claims cannot be independently verified.
Murad, a fighter with the FSA’s 600-strong al-Ribat brigade near Homs, said an offer three months ago by the US-backed Hazem movement to supply his unit with advanced weaponry if it joined the fight against Isis was turned down.
“We rejected this attractive offer, even though we are in great need not only of weapons but food. There is no way that we would fight Isis after the US military campaign against them,” he said.
He and his fellow fighters were awaiting the arrival of Isis militants in Homs, he added. “The moment Isis fighters touch the soil of the Homs countryside, we will be the first to fight with them at the front. This [US-led] military coalition is not against Isis, it is against entire Islam.”
Fighters from Islamic militias are also joining forces with Isis. In Idlib, in north-west Syria, the Jaish al-Mujahideen army, al-Sham brigade, Ahrar al-Sham brigade and al-Nusra Front were all in conflict against Isis earlier this year. Now they are calling for an alliance. More than 1,000 al-Nusra Front fighters in the area joined forces with Isis in a single week in August, according to Ali Sa’eed, a spokesman for the FSA revolutionary command in Idlib.
Abu Talha said he was in talks with al-Nusra Front leaders, “asking them to proclaim their allegiance to Isis and be one hand to defeat Bashar [al-Assad] and all the tyrants in the world”.
“There are senior leaders of al-Nusra Front who are waiting for the zero hour to unite with us. They are more conscious now of the great risks that lie behind the new US crusade against Muslims and jihadis,” he said.
According to those interviewed, civilians as well as fighters are turning towards Isis. The group is gaining support because it implements social measures and increases security, according to Abu Talha.
“We opened 57 free public restaurants in Raqqa city, which provide three meals a day for any resident to foil any claim by a looter that he had to steal in order to feed his children. We provide free fuel to residents as well.” The implementation of sharia law had led to a huge fall in the crime rate in Raqqa and other cities controlled by Isis, he said.
In Ghouta, near Damascus, the al-Nusra Front is the dominant force, but it has lost ground to a few hundred Isis fighters, according to locals. “I can assure you the day Isis declares they are coming to Ghouta, all the people and brigades will be with them out of our dismay and disappointment,” said Fadhil Ali, a restaurant worker. “We can’t wait for the day we have Isis in Ghouta.”
Isis does not have enough weapons for the number of foreign and local jihadis wanting to join its ranks, Abu Talha said. “Jihadis in Algeria, Morocco and Yemen are declaring their allegiance to Isis. Soon we will be in Gaza and then in Iran. People are starting to be aware that Isis is defending the Sunnis.”
The growth in support for Isis was inevitable, he said. “People are suffocated and cannot stand any more. Even when you push a small cat to a corner, it will scratch you. They are slaughtering and killing us. Why should we be silent about it?”
Keystone is a waste...
America’s already an energy superpower without it.
Sideshows can be immensely entertaining and highly distracting. Old-time circuses had bearded ladies, freaks and strongmen; today in America we have the Keystone XL pipeline. It is the ultimate sideshow, one masquerading as a solution to real problems when, in fact, it is largely symbolic, and not particularly potent symbolism at that.
The underlying issues—a lower-carbon future juxtaposed to the demands for more domestic jobs and energy independence—are vital, but Keystone is decidedly not. What is happening outside the debate over Keystone is a tectonic shift in energy supplies and in the geopolitics of energy. The world is seeing a boom in the production of natural gas and a glut of crude petroleum. Global oil demand has plateaued at about 92 million barrels a day and has risen at a much slower rate than population growth globally in the past five years. Oil usage in Asia—primarily China—has soared, but, at the same time, the United States and Europe have undergone a major shift.
Partly, that is because of the massive increase in U.S. domestic energy production, largely due to hydraulic fracturing. Some of that production is oil from shale, but much is natural gas. The U.S. now produces more natural gas than Russia, or than the entire Middle East. Natural gas as a share of U.S. energy consumption is rising, while oil and coal are falling. Oil, of course, is not much used for electricity generation. But it is used for transportation, and here consumption in both the United States and Europe has been declining, in light of the substantially greater fuel efficiency of cars and airplanes and trucks. Oil, the literal lifeblood of Keystone, is becoming less important to the domestic American economy every year.
In short, the morphing global energy industry is fast making the pipeline project nearly irrelevant. Not only have usage patterns shifted but so, too, has supply. The price of oil has been plummeting globally in the face of substantial overproduction globally and decreasing consumption. The price of so-called West Texas oil, the worldwide benchmark, is hovering at $80 a barrel, and by most calculations, the tar-heavy oil sands that Keystone XL would support require the price of crude to be at about $75 a barrel to make the extraction and transportation cost-effective. As Republican oil billionaire Harold Hamm noted recently, a global oil glut makes Keystone less attractive and that much less relevant. With new reserves coming on line and the oil cartel OPEC no longer able to govern its members effectively, we might be in for a protracted period of lower prices; that doesn’t augur well for the economics of Keystone.
As for the argument about the pipeline extension as a cornerstone of U.S. energy independence, as President Barack Obama noted in comments earlier this month, Keystone XL would essentially transport Canadian oil through the United States in order to be exported elsewhere in the world. In that sense, the pipeline isn’t about U.S. energy independence; it is about the United States as a trading passage between Canada and the world. Not a bad thing per se (separate from the question of whether the world needs more oil), but hardly crucial to the American economy. Yes, some of that Canadian crude would be refined in American refineries on the Gulf and then consumed domestically in the United States, but the impact on U.S. energy prices would likely be de minimus.
So we have a Republican oil billionaire and a Democratic president both arguing that Keystone is not a key factor in U.S. energy independence or lowering the price of crude. We have the larger dynamics of the energy industry, more producers of oil around the world and lower consumption of oil in Europe and the U.S. due to efficiencies of engines. And then we have Congress.
The factual realities of the project have become almost completely subsumed in Congress to what the pipeline represents. In short, the pipeline as a symbol has become far more significant than the pipeline as a pipeline. On one side, largely Democratic, we have the intense, passionate opposition of those who believe that climate change is a looming threat; on the other side, largely Republican but with some Democrats such as from Senators Mary Landrieu of Louisiana and Joe Manchin of West Virginia, we have the intense, passionate support of the energy industry and those who believe that America must do all that it can to become energy independent.
Mittens again????
Former GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney would still lead a pack of possible Republican contenders in New Hampshire if he were to run in 2016, a new poll shows.
Romney leads with 30 percent of the vote in a Bloomberg Politics/St. Anselm New Hampshire poll released Monday. It is a healthy 19-point lead over other possible GOP names, including Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, who trails at 11 percent. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie received 9 percent, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush won 8 percent, and Ben Carson, a neurosurgeon and conservative commentator, follows with 6 percent.
Romney, a former governor in neighboring Massachusetts, has long been popular in New Hampshire, where he owns a summer home.
However, with Romney out of consideration, the field of Republican contenders tightens, with Christie and Paul both tied with 16 percent and Bush close behind with 14 percent.
On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton is on top with 62 percent, while Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren received just 16 percent of the vote.
Romney performs the strongest in a potential matchup against Clinton, where he trails 46 to 45. Clinton beats Bush 47 to 39 percent and Paul 48 to 41 percent.
The Bloomberg Politics/St. Anselm New Hampshire poll was conducted Nov. 12-18 and surveyed a base sample of 500 likely 2016 general election voters with a margin of error of plus or minus 4.4 percentage points, as well as 407 likely Republican presidential primary voters and 404 likely Democratic presidential primary voters, each with a margin of error of plus or minus 4.4 percentage points.
(I have met Mittens personally, I felt like I needed to take a shower after... If you have never heard or know about Mormons, look it up and read about it. You will laugh at how stupid and crazy it is... The guy who started the whole thing was a crook and was run out of town many times. He came up with the idea to swindle people of there money. He was killed because of this. The other guy who continued it was just plain crazy. It is amazing that it has gone on so long, the whole thing is based on a swindle and people still are falling for it. Momons are crazy people... Mittens is one of those crazy people and it is a shame that Americans don't bother to really look into who they vote for, they just listen tot he TV..)
Lost emails found
An Internal Revenue Service watchdog has located an estimated 30,000 of the lost Lois Lerner emails, according to a source familiar with the matter.
The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration told congressional staffers Friday the emails belonging to the most controversial figure in the IRS controversy were located on disaster recovery tapes.
The IRS told Congress in late spring that it had lost two years worth of the former head of the tax-exempt division’s emails in a 2011 hard drive crash. They didn’t believe the emails had been backed up anywhere and said her broken hard drive had been recycled.
Lawmakers balked at being told more than a year after the original scandal broke — and several months after the IRS and White House found out.
Republicans said they didn’t believe the IRS and Lerner about the crash — particularly because of the period for which the emails were missing, between 2009 and 2011. That’s around the time the IRS began singling out conservative groups for additional scrutiny.
The inspector general report on the matter attributed the mess to management screw-ups.
TIGTA, which wrote the original report about the tea party controversy, was asked to look into the missing emails matter. A report on the matter is due out soon.
IRS Commissioner John Koskinen had said that he hopes TIGTA can find the tapes, as the agency could not — but he told Congress the hard drive, and likely emails, were gone for good as far as IRS officials knew.
Lerner asserts that she didn’t do anything wrong. She has invoked her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination and will not answer questions from Congress.
GOP majority
Even after a historic midterm win, Republican confusion over how to respond to Obama on immigration is evidence of a changing party.
It was a quiet meeting on the eve of a political explosion.
At 4 p.m. on Wednesday, 30 or so members of the 2012 GOP freshman class of the House of Representatives gathered in a conference room in the Capitol Visitor Center for what’s become a monthly conclave. For the junior representatives, this was a chance to get some face time with Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio). Everyone knew that the next evening, President Barack Obama planned to deliver an in-your-face rebuke to Boehner, who’d warned the president not to “play with matches” and act on his own to suspend deportation of millions of immigrants.
All of those gathered had reason to be angry: Here was the president pretending, absurdly, that he hadn’t just had his butt whipped in the midterms, and defying the biggest GOP House majority-to-come in more than 80 years. Almost exactly a year before, some in the room had been among the most vocal Republicans pushing for a government shutdown as a legislative strategy against Obama.
But now came a stern message from Boehner: The GOP shouldn’t take the bait this time. And as discussion moved around the table, there was little desire for another shutdown, even from the conservatives, over the president’s executive action on immigration. No one wanted to let Democrats off the mat and hand them a political win — especially not now, barely two weeks after the GOP’s historic midterm victory. “There was definitely a sense that they didn’t want to do that [the 2013 shutdown] again,” said an aide to one of the participants.
Outwardly, Republican rhetoric toward the president hasn’t softened much, especially since Obama’s speech Thursday night. The consistent meme is that he is behaving like an unconstitutional monarch.
“The president has taken actions that he himself has said are those of a ‘king’ or an ‘emperor’ — not an American president,” Boehner said in a statement the morning after the speech. “With this action, the president has chosen to deliberately sabotage any chance of enacting bipartisan reforms that he claims to seek. And, as I told the president yesterday, he’s damaging the presidency itself.”
What has changed is the underlying balance of power in the party and, perhaps, the terms of debate within the GOP over how to deal with the Democratic Party and its surprisingly aggressive leader.
Obama might be behaving like a usurping monarch without a mandate, in the eyes of the newly powerful GOP, but no one is seriously threatening to impeach him — as Republicans have repeatedly done in past years. Nor, despite the angry rhetoric, does there seem to be a serious possibility of government shutdown.
Yes, outliers are still threatening actions that could lead to a stalemate a la 2013: Arizona Rep. Matt Salmon, voicing anger against the executive action in a way that typified many Southern and Western Republicans, called the move an “impeachable offense,” and earlier circulated a letter urging House Appropriations chairman Hal Rogers (R-Ky.) to defund any presidential effort to supply work permits or green cards to illegals — potentially prompting a veto and a shutdown. The more than 50 representatives who signed the Salmon letter included many of the same House members who adopted the strategy in 2013 that led to a shutdown then.
And yet Rogers and the House leadership, as well as a substantial portion of the Republican caucus, have made it clear they’re not ready to take that course again. “People are being very thoughtful about this,” said Tennessee Rep. Marsha Blackburn, who is widely seen as a rising star in tea party circles. “I’ve heard no one mention a shutdown except the press.”
Call it thoughtfulness — or call it confusion. All in all, the mild, somewhat subdued response to Obama’s immigration move is evidence that the uncompromising GOP insurgency that so paralyzed Washington in 2013 has lost some potency.
Even some of the House’s most conservative members have little appetite for a government shutdown, saying that while they’re determined to level sharp criticism against the president, they’re not thinking about going much further than that. According to the head of a national, GOP-aligned Republican group, party leaders strongly suspect that Obama is trying to goad conservatives into throwing a fit: “I think the president is counting on a Republican overreaction, where it really takes over the agenda of the new Congress. … I think this president is counting on an overreach.”
Apart from announcing on Friday a lawsuit against the White House over two elements of Obamacare — waiving the employer mandate and transferring funds to insurance companies — the GOP is going home for the Thanksgiving recess without a real plan or response. In an interview, GOP Rep. Tom Cole of Oklahoma, a Boehner ally and former National Republican Congressional Committee chairman, essentially conceded that his party’s hands were tied legislatively for the moment. He said Boehner and incoming Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell are currently in talks about what to do, and he highlighted a border security bill and visa reform as possible options.
Cole also said he’d like to focus on getting an omnibus spending package approved. “From a strategic political standpoint, I think we’re better off establishing stability,” He said. “I don’t think we want to do something that plays into the president’s hands and hurts us, especially after last year’s experience with shutdowns and showdowns. … When your opponent sets a bear trap for you, you don’t respond by stepping into it.”
Former House Deputy Whip Peter Roskam (R-Ill.) also believes the days of severe brinkmanship with the White House have passed, and that his colleagues are eyeing a more measured, strategic approach to squeeze the president. If Obama won’t negotiate, says Roskam, the GOP will cast him as the obstructionist.
“Is it a shutdown strategy? I don’t think so. But I think you’re going to see a longer-term thoughtful strategy on the appropriations side to push back very, very hard against the White House,” he said.
If Obama doesn’t back down on his immigration plan, Roskam said appropriators could attach “limitations amendments” to spending measures without threatening shutdown, forcing the president to decide whether he’ll derail other major programs to preserve his executive order. “The vast areas of connection between the president’s action and the appropriations process [create] many opportunities,” he said. “You shift the burden and then force the discussion by passing some thoughtful, targeted appropriations bills. Is Barack Obama going to be the person who grinds this all to a halt over his immigration policies?”
Also leery of too much confrontation are some incoming GOP freshmen.
Tom MacArthur, the Republican who will represent New Jersey’s 3rd Congressional District next year, called Obama’s action “just outrageous” and he declined to rule out measures that would shutter the government, but he emphasized that any solution should be bipartisan and called the president’s maneuver “an opportunity for both parties to work together.” Lee Zeldin, who will represent a Long Island House district in the next term, played down the importance of the executive order, saying it was just a distraction. “Instead of discussing tax reform and improving our nation’s energy policy and improving the business policy, everybody’s talking about his executive order,” he said. Zeldin too declined to endorse a specific response to Obama’s immigration action.
The immigration issue, of course, is also about the reckoning of 2016, which is a lot closer than it was during the shutdown crisis. With the race for the White House rapidly approaching, a growing number of Republicans are concerned about alienating Latinos, whom many in the GOP see as a natural constituency.
In 2014, Latino turnout was seen as low across many crucial races. But that’s likely not to be the case in a presidential election. In 2012, Obama amassed an astonishing 71 percent of the Hispanic vote to 27 percent for Mitt Romney, who had declared during the primaries that he would make it harder for the 11 million illegal immigrants in the U.S. to get jobs, leading them to “self-deport.” Party leaders legitimately fear a kind of demographic death for the GOP if it doesn’t find a way to appease the burgeoning Hispanic population, particularly since the 2010 census showed, for the first time, that white births are now a minority in the United States.
Some influential conservatives are outraged by what they see as the latest GOP retreat in Washington. Steve Deace, a radio host based in Iowa, said the midterm elections gave Republicans a mandate “to stop Obama” and that the party’s elected leaders can’t be “a bunch of Republican squishes” when it comes to the looming immigration battle. “John Boehner is the third in line to the most powerful office on planet Earth. That is his job,” he said. “It’s Mitch McConnell’s. They need to do their damn jobs.”
Tea Party Patriots, the conservative group that supported several challenges to Republican incumbents, has demanded that McConnell pledge to block every presidential nomination or appointment (save for the national security ones) in response to his executive action. The group has already blasted out fundraising appeals that hammer McConnell as soft on “amnesty.”
“Once again, the Tea Party must do the work that the political elites in Washington refuse to do,” the group wrote in a letter to supporters. “Mitch McConnell and the Senate Republicans need to get into the fight. Barack Obama is now ruling by decree! The American people didn’t elect a new Senate majority in huge numbers so they could turn around and surrender to Barack Obama before the first political shot is fired.”
But it’s not just in Washington that the party seems more divided than ever on immigration. Speaking Wednesday in Boca Raton, Florida, at the Republican Governors Association meeting, Ohio Gov. John Kasich sounded to some like an apostate.
“My sense is: I don’t like the idea of citizenship when people jump the line, [but] we may have to do it,” he said. Maybe Kasich, like Nixon going to China, is that rare pol who’s confident that he — with his conservative pedigree dating to the Gingrich revolution — can move to the center on an issue that has much of the rest of the Republican Party in a barely contained uproar. But it’s also likely that Kasich, who is said to have presidential ambitions, is trying to look over the horizon to 2016, and prodding his still-confused party forward on immigration.
Police shooting.. And shooting and shooting....
Killings by Utah police outpacing gang, drug, child-abuse homicides
By ERIN ALBERTY
By ERIN ALBERTY
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)