As I reported yesterday, Don’t Get Excited About Immigration Reform. Greg Sargent reports this morning, Confusion Envelops Senate Immigration Plan. Basically, the eight senators can’t quite agree about what exactly they mean by the Southwestern border commission. The Democrats claim that this will just be an advisory commission and that it won’t have veto power about whether the federal government can move forward with the rest of the plan.

But Marco Rubio says he wouldn’t support a plan that doesn’t require the approval of the border commission. Rubio is in a difficult position. He wants to appeal to Latinos[1] but he doesn’t want to offend the Tea Party angry-crazy coalition that just loves him. You might think he is just another senator, but right now, he is the Republican Party’s best chance at the White House in 2016. The other Republicans will not go along if he doesn’t.

The whole “secure the boarder” clause in the Senate “framework” is a typical delay tactic. We see this tactic used a lot in gun law reform. Senator X would love to support a ban on high capacity magazines, but there is $100 in the bill for gun safety awareness and Senator X really can’t accept more than $50. (If the bill is changed to have only $50 for gun safety awareness, Senator X will find something else in the bill that “unfortunately” stops him from supporting it.) In this particular case, the Republican senators have come up with a brilliant idea: they pass immigration reform without doing any actual immigration reform.

It will be interesting to watch this go forward. Regardless, I remain unconvinced that anything real will happen. This is yet more of the Republicans pretending to reach out to (in this case) Latinos while signaling to the angry-crazy coalition that they have nothing to fear.

[1] You might think that Rubio doesn’t need to appeal to Latinos. After all, he’s one of them! But have you ever looked at him? He’s less Latino than I am. He’s a very white Cuban. And Cuban-Americans have a very strange place in the Latino ecosystem. Whenever I hear them talk, they seem primarily motivated by all the wealth their families lost when Castro took over Cuban. In Florida, they lean strongly Republican. So they aren’t at all typical of Latinos generally in their voting.

Exactly which demographic is Target attempting to target with this ad?

The provocative soundtrack alone is confusing: does the singer want to see what the girl or the piñata “has got”?

I could only watch in wonder as the pretty young woman, blindfolded and wielding a wand, brings out her best sexy Jedi-in-the-basement moves as she attempts to make contact with the hangy-thing. What will spill out when and if she ever breaks it open? Condoms? Jello shots? Feminine hygiene products? None of the above! In an M. Night Shyamalan twist, it’s fruit snacks for children. The look of sheer joy and surprise on the the girl’s face is bound to get her a lot more work. That was some fine acting.

The commercial is saved from complete surreal stupidity when the breathy voice explains that fruit snacks aren’t just for children; they’re for anyone above the choking hazard age. And they’re colorful against a white background. Brilliant. Now I really want a piñata. I don’t think I’ll go to Target though. That place is nuts.

I had to spend the afternoon at the DMV today. And I spent much of it reading (or trying to read) Why Does the World Exist? There is perhaps no more bizarre place to contemplate the nature of existence. At least for me. Because I have a natural tendency to get captured by solipsism. When you get right down to it, I’m not too sure that you exist. And just to show you how outside of normal thought I have gone, although I think I may well be alone in the universe—perhaps a dream of the universe itself—I fully accept that you too are alone in the universe.

At the DMV, the nature of existence takes on an intense “in your face” form. I spent most of the time there right behind a 60-year-old man who was getting an identification card. Apparently, the government had taken his driver’s license away from him for good. But the people at the convenience store would not take his expired driver’s license to prove that he was over 18 and thus allowed to buy cigarettes. If ever there were proof that I am a subset of the universe, there it was! Alone with my little brain, I never would have conceived of such a character.

It isn’t that the guy was strange. I’m actually rather good at creating very interesting and unusual characters. But I would never conceive of a character that had such a ridiculously trivial motivation. In fact, since hearing his story, I’ve been trying to spice it up. Surely the cigarette thing was a ruse. For one thing, I know that it will take him up to four weeks to get his card. Yet he had cigarettes. He was smoking at the bus stop. There is definitely more there than meets the eye. He’s up to no good.

Or was he? One thing I’ve learned during this “life” is that “God” is a terrible story teller. He is always creating two-dimensional characters in plots that are complicated without being interesting. Or so they seem to me. It is very clear that the stories and character I create are much better. But maybe that’s the point. Maybe it is just the limitations of my little brain—or the fact that I have a brain at all. This is, after all, the same brain that thinks (despite all the obviously contrary evidence) that nothing ought to exist.

I think, therefore I am confused.

This morning, an immigration reform framework was announced by 8 senators. There are two big reasons why we shouldn’t be excited by it.

First, it is primarily a huge giveaway to corporate power. It specifically calls for making it easier for high tech and farm workers to be giving a quick route into the country. I’m not against this necessarily. But the biggest problem we have in this country is in the healthcare field where groups like the AMA and ADA manage to erect huge barriers to foreign doctors and dentists practicing in this country. This is all about priorities and for the ruling class, getting tomatoes picked for a cent and a half a pound is far more important than providing all Americans affordable healthcare.

Second, this is a framework, not even a bill. Plus, it is coming out of the Senate and not the House. Anything that is good in the bill (and there is much) is likely to be stripped out or at least watered down. So stay tuned.

Part of me thinks that this is all one big PR push for Marco Rubio’s 2016 presidential run. As such, it doesn’t matter if the framework goes anywhere; it just matters that Rubio does something that looks like he gives a shit about anyone but our corporate overlords. I find it interesting that Rubio was the one to push the most conservative aspect of this plan: that the 11 million undocumented residents must get at the back of the line in applying for citizenship. This could put off citizenship for these people for decades. As they say, the demon is in the details, but this could make the whole reform practically nonexistent.

So let’s just wait. Let’s see how this moves forward. It will be a good test of whether the Republican Party is prepared to make even the smallest steps toward reform.

Afterword

The framework specifically mentions children. Ezra Klein reports:

These are pretty words, but they don’t make much sense. The whole reason that conservatives are against “amnesty” is that sets a bad precedent. It gives people an incentive to come to the United States illegally. The children may not have come here knowingly, but their parents did. Giving children special treatment gives parents everywhere an incentive to bring their kids here illegally.

Having said that, I’m all for making it easier for children to immigrate here. But I’m also for amnesty. I really think there is more than enough room here in the United States for everyone who wants to come. That isn’t true of most conservatives or even liberals.

This weekend Republicans had yet another get together where they planned to figure out how to stop being a minority party without, you know, actually changing the party in any meaningful way. And I think it is important to remember that some of their great ideas are really not going to work. Recently, I’ve been hearing this one, “Never discuss rape.” A better idea would be, “Pretend that you are for abortion exceptions.” As I’ve noted, this is the real hateful position. But it continues to be the one that comes off the least repellent. It just is the case that being an abortion absolutist is going to get the Republicans into trouble.

And this brings me to my general advice for Republicans, “It’s the policies, stupid.” Last week, Bobby Jindal said that the Republicans had to stop being the stupid party. But any party that takes advice about how not to be stupid from a creationist who has done exorcisms is in deep trouble. And it isn’t just that the Republicans are the party of stupid. They are also the party of hateful. Everywhere they seem committed to have no principle to being anything but thoughtless assholes. Except on abortion where their principled stands makes them thoughtless assholes.

It’s getting old to note that the Republicans are talking around their problems. And even I have been saying that eventually they will have to take a look at their policies. But there are good reasons to resist such a move. Traditionally, the Republicans have been pretty good at finding a charismatic leader and going from there. It was only 6 years between the humiliation of Nixon’s resignation and the start of the Reagan party. Now you could argue—and I do—that Reagan became president only because Paul Volcker created a recession just as we were coming to the 1980 election. But there will always be such events that will give Republicans hope.

The Republicans will have to change their policies eventually. The demographic shift is too extreme. So they are bound to do worse and worse in the coming decade. But eventually, they will figure out a way to get Latinos to resent African Americans. Or something. But that will happen. And the price they’ll pay will be giving in on little things. Like immigration reform, which their primary constituency (the rich) want anyway.

I am proud that I stood up to our government. I stood up for what I believed was right conviction or no conviction. I mean they can convict anybody of anything if they put their minds to it, but I wear this as a badge of honor. I am not a criminal. I am a whistleblower. The thing that I blew the whistle on is now the law of the land. Torture is illegal and it’s officially abandoned in our country and I’m proud to have had a role in that.

—John Kiriakou
Quoted in Fire Dog Lake

I am not a parent, a fact that children everywhere are most grateful for. Although I always thought I would be a great father—like Calvin’s dad, but with more flair. For some reason, all actual parents seem to think that I’m a bad influence on their kids. Like it’s wrong to lie to them or something!

Now I have research on my side. It may be wrong to lie to children, but all parents do it. And not in ways that explain important things like Charles’s Law. Research published in the International Journal of Psychology did interviews with 200 parents in China and the United States. And they all lied! (To the kids, not the researchers. I think.) Check this out:

The researchers claim that this is due to “the universality of the challenge parents face in trying to leave a place against their child’s wishes.” I don’t think so. I suspect this isn’t even the most common lie. Rather, I think this is the lie that parents remember because they feel bad about it. They think, “What if someone thinks I would really leave my child?” When you think about it, this is kind of sweet. Or many not.

One mother told her child, “If you don’t follow me, a kidnapper will come to kidnap you while I’m gone.” There could be a little verbalized fantasy going on here. I may not be a parent, but I can see that being one is a trial at times. Recently, Bill Maher (about as knowledgeable of kids as I am) said he knew that a stem cell was not a baby because you could put a stem cell in the freezer and you can’t a baby. And how did he know that? Because if parents could put their babies in the freezer, they would. “We need a vacation; let’s put Junior in the freezer until we get back!”

Anyway, I don’t think lying is a bad thing. Mostly, I think it’s good. You look great! What a wonderful song that was! I didn’t mean to kill the first few! Okay, maybe not that last one. But I certainly think that my “educational” moments with kids should be seen in charming. And the kids will someday too. “Uncle Frank? I just made a fool of myself! Why did you tell me unicorns were hunted to extinction by Neanderthals?!”