Big Red Car here in the ATX at a crisp 49F headed to a high of 65F. To my friends in Buffalo, I have some advice.
Whoever has been praying for snow can stop now, y’all. It worked.
So tonight the President will unveil his plans to dramatically change the immigration system through the issuance of an Executive Order.
An Executive Order can be reversed by his successor and so he is really making a two year change rather than a permanent change. It will take months to actually implement so it will likely never really have any substantial impact other than another nail in the coffin of a failed presidency.
There are viewpoints from serious folks — previously including the President himself who has opined on more than twenty five occasions — that the very act he now takes is not legal. The President is a well known Constitutional scholar (that would be a bit of sarcasm sayeth the Big Red Car) and thus tears the document which defines our governance.
There are some important considerations here.
1. As a matter of economic policy — the addition of 5-10MM low skill, low wage earning workers into our “new normal” high unemployment labor force — the action is ill advised. Wage earners are being doomed to declining wages and declining family incomes for perhaps the next decade. This is in the face of both increasing costs (witness Obamacare premiums alone) and an already precipitous decline in family incomes during every year of the Obama administration.
2. As a matter of politics, this act dooms the last two years of the President’s administration to a constant distracting fight with the Republican Congress which was assembled by the silly utterance that while President Obama himself was not on the ballot — his freakin’ policies were. Duh, Mr. President, did you watch the returns? You got beaten like a rented mule.
a. You lost the Senate.
b. The House is still further Republican.
c. The Governors of your home state, Illinois, as well as Massachusetts, Maryland (freakin’ People’s Republic of Maryland, y’all) and Florida are all Republicans.
d. The Statehouses march in step toward becoming overwhelmingly Republican.
Your policies sunk the election for your team. Americans do not like your policies. Read the tea leaves and change course. [By way of evenhandedness and fairness, the Big Red Car thinks the Republicans will find a way to snag stupidity from the jaws of this victory and Mitch McConnell and the other old school trough feeders will manage to shit in even this mess kit. Mark my words sayeth the Big Red Car.]
3. Make no mistake, this is a purely political act with the notion that whomever is able to create the most powerful sense of entitlement in the illegal immigrants who benefit from this policy will create a loyal voting block which will deliver future elections. This is all about politics. Nothing more. Our President has never been about anything other than politics, so this is no big change for him. He is the Campaigner in Chief.
When you wake up on Saturday — the President is at least having the decency to finalize his announcement in Las Vegas thereby acknowledging what a bad gamble this entire mess truly is — nothing will have been changed for the better on the economy, jobs, the Middle East, Iran’s relentless march toward becoming a nuclear weaponized despotism, Russia, China, Afghanistan, ISIS/ISIL/shitheads, Gaza, Longhorn football or any of the other important issues which will determine the fate of the world. Obamacare will not be suddenly allowing you to keep your doctor, your insurance plan or lowering your insurance premiums. The big stuff won’t be impacted except for the economy which will take a few months to sour on the idea.
One last word about the friction between what our President said he would do on the subject and what he is going to do — just another set of lies. Lies like Obamacare. Lies like the IRS. Lies like Benghazi. Lies like Fast & Furious. Lies, lies, lies, lies. President Barack H Obama, the biggest liar to have ever occupied the Oval Office. I am sorry for the United States. I am sorry for our allies. I am sorry for the soul of our President. We deserved better than this and he promised something much better than this but then………………….he is a liar.
Here is the good news, y’all. There is likely not to be too much in the way of execution on these changes in the next two years as the administration’s long suit is not execution. They are mostly talkers and not really doers. Damn good talkers, give them their due. Not very good on the execution. We shall overcome even this.
But, hey, what the Hell do I really know anyway? I’m just a Big Red Car. Be kind to someone today and turn the tide of negativity one person at a time.
