Immigration Reform in the Hands of The Orange One

So the Senate worked hard at making the Immigration Reform bill worse in hopes of attracting 70 votes, because something. But seriously, there are people with important jobs who think that two extra votes on the immigration reform bill will suddently make John Boehner OK with losing his job. I don't understand these people.

The bill passed the Senate with 68 votes, and will now move on to the House, where it will not pass. I understand the point of advocating for the bill and using this moment as a leverage point, but I as an observer of this stuff I'd be willing to bet anything that nothing will come from this bill. In order to pass, the bill would have to be brought up and passed with Democratic votes. I know some commentators are trying to claim this would be some sort of GOP victory with latino voters but that's just insane. How on earth does a bill passing over the loud racist objections of your party benefit Republicans in any way?

We'll see how this plays out, but I'd be stunned if any actual passed legislation emerges from this mess.

Well Played Michelle Obama

I'm sure whatever the Orange man was saying was corny as hell.

On To The Next Fake Crisis!

Tom Tomorrow with another great one:

Cliff Madness

I don't know why I find this stuff so hilarious, but I do.

It was only a few days before the nation would go over the fiscal cliff, no bipartisan agreement was in sight, and Reid had just publicly accused Boehner of running a “dictatorship” in the House and caring more about holding onto his gavel than striking a deal.

“Go f— yourself,” Boehner sniped as he pointed his finger at Reid, according to multiple sources present.

Reid, a bit startled, replied: “What are you talking about?”

Boehner repeated: “Go f— yourself.”

The harsh exchange just a few steps from the Oval Office — which Boehner later bragged about to fellow Republicans — was only one episode in nearly two months of high-stakes negotiations laced with distrust, miscommunication, false starts and yelling matches as Washington struggled to ward off $500 billion in tax hikes and spending cuts.

And it turns out Harry Reid likes Obama's proposals as much as I do.

The White House sent Reid a list of suggested concessions as his staff debated what to send back to McConnell. Reid looked over the concessions the administration wanted to offer, crumpled up the paper and tossed it into his fireplace. The gesture was first reported by Politico and confirmed to HuffPost by sources with knowledge of it, who noted that Reid frequently keeps his fire going and is fond of feeding a variety of proposals to it.

If I had a fireplace, I would be doing this with Obama's proposals to cut Medicare and Social Security at all times.

Calling His Bluff

Kudos to Obama for calling more attention to this: (via atrios)

While there is no silver bullet to address rising gas prices in the short term, there are steps we can take to ensure the American people don’t fall victim to skyrocketing gas prices over the long term. One of those steps is to eliminate unwarranted tax breaks to the oil and gas industry and invest that revenue into clean energy to reduce our dependence on foreign oil. Our outdated tax laws currently provide the oil and gas industry more than $4 billion per year in these subsidies, even though oil prices are high and the industry is projected to report outsized profits this quarter. In fact, in the past CEO’s of the major oil companies made it clear that high oil prices provide more than enough profit motive to invest in domestic exploration and production without special tax breaks. As we work together to reduce our deficits, we simply can’t afford these wasteful subsidies, and that is why I proposed to eliminate them in my FY11 and FY12 budgets.

I was heartened that Speaker Boehner yesterday expressed openness to eliminating these tax subsidies for the oil and gas industry. Our political system has for too long avoided and ignored this important step, and I hope we can come together in a bipartisan manner to get it done.

The likelyhood of this happening is probably nonesistant, but when Boehner says something like that, it's good to try and make him actually do something about it.

Also, as atrios points out, it's good of the White House to bring this up in relation to rising gas prices, which the right will undoubtedly blame on teachers unions, gay people, or Muslims in the coming months.