Showing posts with label Gang of Eight. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gang of Eight. Show all posts

Friday, September 20, 2013

Jennifer Rubin of The Washington Post combs thru the mountain of evidence -and self-inflicted wounds- that is Marco Rubio's disastrous 2013 and asks the logical question, "Who is Marco Rubio?" (¿Quién es Marco Rubio?) But maybe the real question is what is Rubio? Someone to be trusted and counted upon, or someone to be leery of because of his penchant for conflating his own role and ego?; Just as I predicted months ago, no?; #Rubio, #gangofeight, #RubiosFolly




Jennifer Rubin of The Washington Post combs thru the mountain of evidence -and self-inflicted wounds- that is Marco Rubio's disastrous 2013 and asks the logical question, "Who is Marco Rubio?" (¿Quién es Marco Rubio?) But maybe the real question is what is Rubio? Someone to be trusted and counted upon, or someone to be leery of because of his penchant for conflating his own role and ego?; Just as I predicted months ago, no?; #Rubio, #gangofeight, #RubiosFolly
I need hardly remind you regular readers of this blog that I predicted all of this very intense scrutiny, personal criticism and second-guessing of Marco Rubio's character many months ago in this space, in a series of posts re immigration comparing what Rubio had said and promised at one point in time with what he actually did and said when it counted, and behind-the-scenes.
This, even while Florida's Mainstream Media -and especially the reporters at The Miami Herald- were predicting clear sailing ahead, even as they scrubbed their own newspapers and websites of anything or anyone critical of Rubio's pro-amnesty approach to immigration reform that put amnesty first and border security second, in keeping consistent with the Editorial Board policies set forth and the personal opinions of many reporters, columnists and editors or news room producers.

Now we'll all get to see how Rubio handles adversity and very strong personal criticism about his integrity and trust-worthiness, and whether he is destined to learn from the experience or simply going to become just the latest one-term Much-Ado-about-nothing Senator in Washington.
As a voter who supported him early on in 2009 and voted for him twice in 2010, this is far from being a settled question right now.
Without the support of voters like me, former Democrats, Rubio's political future is very much in doubt -and completely forget about 2016

The Washington Post
Who is Marco Rubio?
By Jennifer Rubin, 
Updated: September 19, 2013
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) is young and eloquent. But he has baffled conservatives who have no idea who the real Rubio is.
Is he the Rubio who embraced immigration reform in the Senate or the Rubio who’s dropped the issue entirely?
Is he the Rubio who talks about a positive agenda including higher education reform or is he the know-nothing who follows Sens. Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) in the shutdown cul-de-sac? 
Read the rest of the piece at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2013/09/19/who-is-marco-rubio/

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See also my June 12, 2013 post titled,
When Rush Limbaugh admits he's disappointed in Marco Rubio's flip-flop on immigration, it's only going to get worse for Rubio. Only positive of S.744, the Schumer-Rubio “comprehensive” immigration amnesty bill, i.e the #setup4sellout, IF it passes, is that Rubio gets properly 'schooled' and roughed-up a bit to wear off his new car smell and conservatives see his true faults for what they are -he's still too gullible. Consider that Mission (already) Accomplished; Mickey Kaus is masterfully connecting-the-dots on why defeating this is more important to U.S. long-term than getting more info re Benghazi, IRS, NSA snooping scandals
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2013/06/mickey-kaus-is-masterfully-connecting.html

Sunday, September 1, 2013

Video: Michelle Malkin hammers Marco Rubio over his duplicity, pandering and condescension this year in crafting the ill-advised Schumer-Rubio immigration bill that puts Amnesty first and Border Security and everything else second, in an effort to appease the GOP Establishment, agribusiness interests, Hispanic voters and the Mainstream Media. In doing so, she lambastes him in a way that no prominent person in Florida has been willing to do publicly, though Mickey Kaus has been doing what he can to inform & educate from The Left Coast; @michellemalkin, @kausmickey, @TwitchyTeam, #marcorubio, @powerlineUS


Thesharktank1 YouTube Channel video: Michelle Malkin Talks About Rubio's Immigration Position with blogger Javier Manjarres. Recorded at the Defending the American Dream Summit  in Orlando, Florida. Uploaded September 1, 2013. http://youtu.be/PDG-LAra9io

Video: Michelle Malkin hammers Marco Rubio over his duplicity, pandering and condescension this year in crafting the ill-advised Schumer-Rubio immigration bill that puts amnesty first and border security and everything else second, in an effort to appease the GOP Establishment, agribusiness interests, Hispanic voters and the Mainstream Media. In doing so, she lambastes him in a way that no prominent person in Florida has been willing to do publicly, though Mickey Kaus has been doing what he can to inform & educate from The Left Coast; @michellemalkin, @kausmickey, @TwitchyTeam, #marcorubio, @powerlineUS

And boom goes the dynamite! :) 
In my opinion, conservative writer, pundit and Twitchy head honcho Michelle Malkin's 100% right about everything she says in this video, which I saw early Sunday morning before going to sleep, when it then only had about 5 views.

It's funny -no, not really- that a relative outsider to Florida politics like her can so easily size-up this whole episode for what it really is and has been, but the supposedly better-informed (re Rubio) Florida press corps that has largely carried Rubio's luggage has avoided -even while finally starting to acknowledge some faults and mis-steps, NOT that they ever did during the policy debate, esp. in the pages of the Miami Herald, which censored any and all anti-amnesty points-of-view!

Something that regular readers of this blog have known from the very start as I've endeavored to point out one instance after another of the Florida press corps going out of their way to NOT see things that were contrary to their Editorial Board's pro-amnesty positions, or reporting on honest fact-based disagreements with Rubio.

By contrast to their soft, gentle and sycophantic touch, almost acting as a Rubio protective cordon, Michelle Malkin just walks up and pulls the Band-aid off without any warning!

It's almost like she's reading my mind -and has been reading my blog posts- and is applying just the right amount of honesty, anger and sarcasm to really make the point crystal clear. :)

TwitchyTeam  @TwitchyTeam, https://twitter.com/TwitchyTeam
http://twitchy.com/

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Mickey Kaus continues connecting-the-dots on Marco Rubio and the realities of Schumer-Rubio that the Mainstream Media and Beltway Dems like our own DWS are trying very hard not to reveal. 
Mickey wants everyone properly informed, MSM and Dems want everyone sleeping, sleeping, sleeping... like babies 



I sent that odd Thomas B. Edsall piece in the NY Times from a month ago on Rubio and his latest K Street contributions to Mickey in LA on Tuesday and was pleased to see that he ran a few tweets on both of them. 
I'll have more original thoughts on Rubio's fall-from-grace soon on the blog.

http://dailycaller.com/author/mickeykaus/

Rubio Doubles Down into Disaster 
6:26 PM 06/17/2013  
http://dailycaller.com/2013/06/17/rubio-doubles-down-into-disaster/#

Mickey Kaus @kausmickey https://twitter.com/kausmickey www.kausfiles.com

Michelle Malkin  @michellemalkin https://twitter.com/michellemalkin
www.michellemalkin.com

See also:
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2013/07/schumer-rubio-gives-pandering-a-bad-name.php
SCHUMER-RUBIO TAKES PANDERING TO A NEW LEVEL
PAUL MIRENGOFF
JULY 9, 2013 

Friday, July 19, 2013

Where's Marco Rubio? Like me -but unlike the sleepwalking South Florida news media- blogger extraordinaire Mickey Kaus has not only noticed that Team Rubio has gone silent on immigration and wants to talk about everything BUT that, he's focusing like a laser on it. That's not by accident. 67% of GOP voters who oppose a "path to legal status" say they could not vote 4 someone who disagreed on that issue!; @kausmickey, #RubiosFolly






As I told you all last month in my multiple blog posts about Marco Rubio's lack of tweets about immigration -but about the Miami Heat- and the Miami Herald's self-evident and heavy-handed censorship for well over two weeks of all references, in-print and in their blogs, re Ryan Lizza's excellent New Yorker piece on the Schumer-Rubio bill, the Gang of Eight and Marco Rubio and his staff re the pro-amnesty bill that emerged.
And censorship of any articulate, fact-filled negative comments about the bill. 
Nope, nothing about Florida's agribusiness industry hungering for more low-cost labor and how much they were spending to make it happen.

Los Angeles-based blogger Mickey Kaus, long one of my favorites since I was living and working in the D.C. area and he was at Slate, and now writing at The Daily Caller website, is one of the many people I shared this bits of news with around the country.
Some didn't know about it, some had heard but hadn't seen any actual evidence.
Then I dropped some fact-filled evidence on them via email.

Over the past few weeks, as only Mickey Kaus can so consistently, with insightful reporting and good humor, well-timed sarcasm and a knack for saying today what others will be saying tomorrow, via his very popular Twitter feed and blog, he has reminded us all again that, surprise, "Team Rubio really has gone silent on immigration"















































Monday, July 15, 2013

More bad MSM analysis of Marco Rubio 2016 and immigration reform that includes the usual convenient forgetting of facts/polls that disagree with the central thesis of both La Raza and the GOP Consulting Class. Wow, this is getting tiresome! Jill Lawrence in National Journal: The Myth of Marco Rubio’s Immigration Problem; what's NOT a myth is Miami Herald's recent censorship of criticism of Rubio over immigration reform, esp. Ryan Lizza essay






My comments are after the frustrating column in Beltway Conventional Wisdom at bottom.

I know I can't be the only former Democrat who voted for Marco Rubio for U.S. Senate
in the 2010 Florida primary and general election who will publicly admit that he's unqualified
to be President or Veep in 2016, and who also think he's wrong on immigration.
The one thing I know that GOP pollster Whit Ayres can't seem to accept is that Marco Rubio can't possibly do anything in the future politically without votes from voters like me.
If voters like me ever turn on him for good...

-----
The National Journal
The Myth of Marco Rubio’s Immigration Problem
He’s taking heat for supporting a path to citizenship. 
But almost every other GOP 2016 prospect does too.
By Jill Lawrence
July 15, 2013 | 6:00 a.m.
Florida Sen. Marco Rubio is losing altitude with some conservatives because he’s the Republican face of immigration reform that includes a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. Yet he’ll have a lot of company in the 2016 field if he runs for the GOP presidential nomination.
In fact almost every Republican weighing a 2016 race – from Jeb Bush and Chris Christie to Paul Ryan and Bobby Jindal – favors some path to citizenship like the one in the comprehensive reform bill passed by the Senate, or is open to a variation of it.
Read the rest of the column at:

This is unintentionally funny, that is, if you think biased or uneven reporting is funny, given  that like a 1,001 of these media pieces on Marco Rubio the last few weeks,  The  National Journal's Jill Lawrence never actually talks to a serious and articulate person who is actually against Schumer-Rubio and who can make the case that there is a lot everyone can agree on and it's precisely THOSE policies of agreement that should be done FIRST on immigration 
reform, and the Gang of Eight prescription of a path to citizenship is NOT one of things that a majority of Americans agree.

But when confronted with that fact and numerous polls in all parts of the country showing this,
Rubio and the rest of the Gang, along with their various sycophants and proxies in the news media, Think Tanks and the Beltway GOP Consulting Establishment, esp. those with a tie to big-time corporate Agribusiness, want to grab their football and run home -and sulk.

And send email to supposedly-conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks about how unfair it all is that some voters in the country, especially the active GOP grassroots, are openly resistant to the demands of the GOP Beltway Crowd that this should be rammed thru or swallowed whole, despite the fact that its own supporters clearly haven't read it all and even now still can't explain all its ramifications to well-prepped reporters with a straight face.
Which, last time I checked, is what one of the public's principal criticisms of Obamacare were.
Correctly as we all know now.

Of course, like all those other pieces on Marco Rubio that have run the past few weeks that are almost always largely pro-Rubio -even if they do feel the occasional need for PR purposes to rap his knuckles or take him to task for some element of his amnesty position that doesn't please La Raza, Univision or the Democratic left- Jill Lawrence's 
conscious choice to NOT speak to someone smart and knowledgeable about what's going-on like Mickey Kaus, who can make that logical and persuasive counter-argument that includes Border protection, and do it in an interesting and informative way, Lawrence makes it much-easier for her to write her column.
And in the end, isn't that what's really most important to her?!











The one person she does quote a lot, GOP consultant Whit Ayres, seems to me to be laboring under one very large false illusion, and it's a sign of how disconnected so much of the GOP Consulting Class is that this can happen without someone who knows him grabbing him by the lapels and snapping him out of zombie-like trance chanting counter-intuitive nostrums about why it's correct for this bad piece of legislation to get passed the way he and the GOP Establishment want -expecting any new-ish group of voters in the future to be "thankful" to the GOP for passing it is preposterous and shows no understanding of either human or voting behavior in this country.

But then what are we to make of this?
It’s not a given that Republicans will lose if they stay the course. Those who are well funded, strong in their convictions, and persuasive on the stump might just prevail. Defiance might be worth a try, since the stakes are kind of big: constructive governance and the future of the Republican Party.
Funny, Jill Lawrence herself wrote that.
But she didn't write it within the context of the immigration story, even though it would be true, perhaps more so than any other issue.

Nope, she wrote this back in March, and the title that The National Journal came up for that tells you everything you need to know about the way she views the world, making her piece today seem all the more predictable:

Republicans Need to Think for Themselves, Even in Election Years
The GOP will never get fixed if its candidates keep running scared from primary challenges
By Jill Lawrence
Updated: May 30, 2013 | 12:31 a.m., March 4, 2013 | 11:22 a.m.

http://www.nationaljournal.com/politics/republicans-need-to-think-for-themselves-even-in-election-years-20130304

Call me crazy but my intuition based on actually paying attention to what happens in this country is that those future new permanent residents-turned voters will walk into the voting booth in their town's city hall or rec center or Senior's Center and calmly vote against Ayres' GOP candidates and not think about it twice.

Meanwhile, Ayres will still be trying to talk his failed candidates off a ledge by rationalizing the bad decision he made, as if that will do any good to his defeated candidates, after-the-fact, like they were sacrifices to appease the PC media gods.
And the candidates will remind him that he never said anything BEFORE th election about them being sacrifices, since they were paying him full-price.

It's all so very predictable, even without benefit of my handy Time Machine, but as usual, instead of someone with moxie like Kaus, who isn't afraid to fire back, it's pro-amnesty Establishment GOP Ayres whom Lawrence decides to make the conscience of her piece, which is why he'll still keep getting quoted in the future, no matter how wrong he is and illogical his analysis proves to be for years in retrospect.

This situation with Ayres is the precisely the sort of thing that, whatever else is wrong with American sports and the sports media punditocracy these days, and there's a lot, it shows that it is much more self-correcting than the world of political consulting and broadcast/print punditry.

Sometime, like a MLB pitcher with an un-hittable fastball who never learned to adapt and develop any other consistent pitches in crucial situations that could get strikes and not be hit in the air, a pundit just loses their honed intuition.
That's it -the end. 

An Ayres could not last for very long on Fox Sports game day coverage of the NFL or even ESPN/ABC's stranglehold of college football game day coverage, by consistently being wrong about what happened and what will happen next.
But because Ayres has been inoculated by a member in good standing of the MSM, he'll continue to be able to sound-off on politics with reporters from outlets all over the country with no idea of his poor judgment and analysis.
It's our New Normal.

And if you still haven't read the great Ryan Lizza essay on Rubio and the Gang of Eight's bill that the Miami Herald consciously prevented from ever being publicly mentioned in print by their reporters or in their blogs, as I wrote about last month a few times, see:

The New Yorker
GETTING TO MAYBE
Inside the Gang of Eight’s immigration deal.
BY RYAN LIZZA
JUNE 24, 2013

Saturday, June 29, 2013

How do you solve a problem like Marco Rubio? With lots of fact-filled Kaus-centricity! Mickey Kaus continues to write honestly about Rubio while Florida news media remains too cowed to report truth about him; After 19 days of Marco Rubio censoring his own Twitter feed, @MarcoRubio, just like the Miami Herald's two week #newsblackout of anti-amnesty, anti-Rubio news in-print and online, Rubio tweeted, well, more piety; @kausmickey, #RubiosFolly


Rush Limbaugh on reluctance of Republicans to openly criticize Marco Rubio for his pro-amnesty first position. Uploaded June 28, 2013. http://youtu.be/gaFXjKb7UYE.


Caller to Rush Limbaugh Show from El Paso, Texas area relates conversation he had with illegal aliens from Mexico about what they saw as the downside to Schumer-Rubio bill from their perspective: more competition for menial jobs from coming surge of people across border, people who don't want to become citizens. Uploaded June 28, 2013. http://youtu.be/HetlXjLrhqY
How do you solve a problem like Marco Rubio? With lots of fact-filled Kaus-centricity! Mickey Kaus continues to write honestly about Rubio while Florida news media remains too cowed to report truth about him; After 19 days of Marco Rubio censoring his own Twitter feed, @MarcoRubio, just like the Miami Herald's two week #newsblackout of anti-amnesty, anti-Rubio news in-print and online, Rubio tweeted, well, more piety; @kausmickey, #RubiosFolly
Unlocked! 
Now you can finally see for yourself what the Miami Herald has desperately trying to keep quiet about in Ryan Lizza's New Yorker column for the past two weeks, where never was heard a discouraging word -about Rubio (and the Herald's) pro-amnesty first policy.

The New Yorker
GETTING TO MAYBE
Inside the Gang of Eight’s immigration deal
By Ryan Lizza
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2013/06/24/130624fa_fact_lizza



Here's what Rubio wrote after 19 days of nothing on Twitter:




























































































Monday, June 24, 2013

Prescient blogger Mickey Kaus is reading my mind again: "Psst, @SenMarcoRubio: Don't even bother showing up in Iowa"; "Pew shows blacks favor "enforcement first" approach--way off the Dem reservation on that, basically in line w/ GOPs"; Meanwhile The Hill reports "Schumer predicts mass demonstrations if House blocks path to citizenship"; pro-amnesty Miami Herald goes an entire week without publishing anything critical of immigration bill they favor











Whatever you do, don't wake-up FL-24 Rep. Frederica Wilson and tell her that last bit of news. She doesn't want to have to say anything about the Schumer-Rubio immigration bill until after she gets her talking points from Debbie Wasserman-Schultz.  

More Mickey at http://dailycaller.com/author/mickeykaus/

Here's some more of what you WON'T be reading about the Schumer-Rubio immigration bill in the Miami Herald or the South Florida Sun-Sentinel this week, or seeing presented fairly on newscasts of CBS4, NBC6, 7News or Local10 News at 6 and 11 p.m. 
And what you WON'T be reading about any of the various amendments or fig-leafs that will never be enforced.

Not that the smart readers among you didn't already know this, or haven't since connected the dots over the past week after realizing how truly unprofessional the Miami Herald and its management and editors have been by having a news blackout on the Ryan Lizza column and Rubio and Alex Conant.
But for the rest of you, do you not see how the local South Florida press corps is completely snowing you, and almost daring you to call them on what they've done.

Try to find the words Lizza, Corker or Hoeven on these websites for May or June of 2013 re immigration, especially written by a local reporter.
Nice and thorough, Miami-style: nothing.
It's like they did a body-dump by driving out to the Everglades and dropped the facts into the swamp, assuming the gators would eat all the evidence.

http://miami.cbslocal.com/

Local10, http://www.local10.com/ is the only one of the four with anything to speak of, and none of what appears there is local, just written AP dispatches.
So none of it was ever actually telecast.
So it's little more than useless, too.
























On Sunday afternoon, I left this comment at the Tampa Bay Times website regarding Alex Leary's story on Friday about Sen. Jeff Sessions and his efforts at telling the truth about the myriad amendments and what Rubio and the Gang of Eight are trying to do -buy off senators with promises that the Congress has no intention of keeping in the future.

Tampa Bay Times
Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions driven in opposition to immigration reform bill
Alex Leary, Times Washington Bureau Chief
Friday, June 21, 2013 11:20am
http://www.tampabay.com/news/politics/national/alabama-sen-jeff-sessions-the-fierce-unrelenting-opponent-of-immigration/2127863

At some point, Alex, you and the other political/govt. reporters at the Times are going to have to have a serious pow-wow amongst yourselves about your news partner, the Miami Herald.
Have to reconcile yourselves with the larger real world consequences of the fact that even while all sorts of things have been going on this past week on Capitol Hill with the immigration bill and the various amendments and fig-leafs intended to get more GOP support, matters that can have been mentioned at all of of the major political websites and blogs, and via Twitter, the zealously pro-amnesty Miami Herald has been engaging in a policy of deliberate censorship.A news blackout against anything and everything that has come out publicly that is negative about the Schumer-Rubio bill, esp. in Ryan Lizza's column in the The New Yorker about Sen. Rubio and his aide, Alex Conant. No, never is heard a discouraging word.
Instead of trying to stay on top of things for its readers as you'd expect, the Herald has gone the exact opposite route -to keep their own readers in the dark by making sure that nothing about it gets into print or is mentioned publicly in their political blog, Naked PoliticsYour Tuesday blog post was NOT co-listed there -for obvious reasons. Because it publicly raised questions about just what was in that column of Lizza's, specifically, Alex Conant's comments which would not have gone down so well in Northwest Miami.
That is precisely what the Herald's current management and editors don't want to see publicly brought up or discussed. especially anything that reflects poorly or Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush, almost as if the Herald is now their publicists.Nope, the only things that get into print re S.744 are positive things about immigration -no mention about what the true purposes of the various amendments and fig-leafs are and what groups and industries are pushing them -any why.
Nothing like this fair-minded piece of yours today re what Sen. Sessions wants to do.
There's YOUR news partner at work.
Engaged in a deliberate news blackout against anything that is contrary to their editorial stand on immigration.
Very late Sunday night the Herald posted the Leary story online at  http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/06/23/3467046/rubios-steadfast-immigration-reform.html

It's NOT like this is the first time that the Miami Herald has gone into full-spin control to protect Marco Rubio once he was elected to the U.S. Senate, either:

The Atlantic Wire
Miami Herald Is Better at Marco Rubio Damage Control Than Rubio
By John Hudson
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/politics/2011/10/miami-herald-better-marco-rubio-damage-control-rubio/43990/