** For all the fanfare about coming changes to US immigration law earlier this year, there is little sign of it now. Comprehensive immigration law changes are not on the action list for Speaker-to-be Nancy Pelosi. It turns out there is significant opposition within the Democratic Party to the changes pushed by some corporate interests and champions of illegal immigrant rights: Among Democrats elected in swing districts. Among organized labor. And among African-Americans.
Who knew?
** HOUSE INTEL SITUATION STILL UNRESOLVED. Still in the wake of mostly scathing reviews for her attempt to install her ethics reform-eschewing ally, Congressman John Murtha, as the new House majority leader, House Speaker-designate Nancy Pelosi has yet to resolve a growing crisis around the crucial chairmanship of the House Intelligence Committee. The San Francisco Democrat disdains naming the ranking Democrat on the committee, judged by most to be the best-qualified, LA Congresswoman Jane Harman, a more moderate Democrat and intelligence expert. This seems odd, because the other committee chairmanships are falling along seniority lines. Harman is the best qualified candidate, but she and Pelosi don’t get along well personally and Harman was an early supporter of the Iraq War. But Pelosi’s other options on the committee seem rather underwhelming.
Florida Congressman Alcee Hastings has reportedly been promised the chairmanship by Pelosi. He’s the pick of the Congressional Black Caucus. But prior to his election to the House, he was kicked out of a federal judgeship for malfeasance in office. He would be a PR disaster. The sometimes touted compromise pick, Texas Congressman Silvestre Reyes, is dismissed by experts as a career Border Patrol “timeserver.”
Pelosi is getting advice to not be stubborn after the Murtha debacle and go with Harman as the intel chair. Or to be “creative,” and pick someone other than the three names most in play. Given the world situation, it is not a good sign that the incoming House Democratic leadership is so unsettled on this key post.
** IRAQ/IRAN/SYRIA SUMMIT POSTPONED DUE TO BAGHDAD AIRPORT CLOSURE. The Iraqi president’s trip to Tehran today for a scheduled summit with Iran and Syria has just been postponed due to the closure of Baghdad airport. Sectarian violence taking place throughout the Iraqi capital city forced the airport’s closure. Iraq, Syria, and Iran have agreed to hold a summit in the Iranian capital to discuss measures to contain the spreading upheaval in Iraq.
** Monitor computer memory prices on a daily basis.
** Monitor global and national energy prices via Bloomberg.
Read 
| Comments (0) |
What a great metaphor for the sheer disaster of the Iraq War. Our client president can’t use the airport we can’t secure to fly to IRAN to bring peace to his country! Is there anything that makes it clearer what a disaster Bush and the neocons have made over there?
A total nightmare.
I’ll say it again, Pelosi should pick Harman like a grownup and move on. She is looking like an amateur.
Yes. It’s a rhetorical question.
I should find out how the energy ministers meeting in Tehran went. Later.
What are the odds that the “airport closure” explanation is a smokescreen, and the real reason for cancellation of the summit is al Sadr’s threat to withdraw from Maliki’s coalition if he attended the summit?
The prime minister wasn’t going to Tehran for the summit with Iran and Syria. Presidenti Jalal Talabani was/is.
The prime minister is having a summit with Bush.
Are they going to start building the recently authorized new 700 miles of the border fence? I’ve heard both ways. Duncan Hunter and Tancredo seem to think there is no wiggle room, and construction must start immediately. Others say there’s no funding, and besides, Bush’s DHS can build the fence entirely of cameras and remote controlled airplanes. (I’d like to see them test this virtual fence around the White House first.)
I bet on a “virtual” fence.
With a large dollop of faux thrown in for good measure.
Bill,
You know Barbara is not going to be the least bit happy when she returns and finds that you have let the immigration issue fall apart. And you do realize that it’s all YOUR falut, don’t you?
I would suggest that you spend the rest of this day preparing to defend youself when she returns!
Okay, back to waiting for the Big Game.
Ah, too true.
There will be no immigration “reform.” The people against a flood of illegals are matched by the people against a “fence.”
Stalemate is not a good thing, but there we are.
When will someone expose technorati.com?
I really hate the part of politics that resembles middle school.
The oddest thing in the House Intel situation is that, so far as I know, the conflict between Pelosi and Harman is something (relatively) recent — they were still cordial as recently as 2000, when Pelosi helped Harman get back her seniority and committee assignments, and Harman was backing Pelosi’s moves towards a leadership role in the House caucus.
I wrote Pelosi a letter encouraging her to resolve the feud with Harman for the sake of the country and party; I can hope that some reasonable number of like-minded activists are saying, “This isn’t what I fought to get you into power for!” And at the very least, I’m hoping Hastings is rejected.
Re: Iraq, I hear the Sadr faction has taken over al-Iraqiya and is basically using it to name Sunni targets for Shiites to murder… I think the neocons may have one thing right; this isn’t a civil war. It’s something worse — a Rosseauvian “war of all against all”, the situation that exists in the absence of any meaningful State. At least in a civil war, it might be (comparatively) safe for civilians to separate into segregated enclaves, and let the various militias fight each other, rather than targeting civilians and civil society.
On a lighter note, I saw the Bond flick last night. Great performances from all the major actors. Unfortunately, if you actually start thinking too hard about the last twenty minutes of the plot, it kinda all unravels. I’m torn on Craig vs Dalton — Craig’s a little too beefy, I think, to fit my image of Fleming’s character; Craig plays up the idea that Bond is more brute-force than subtlety and speed. Bond may not have been supernatural, but he was supposed to be fast.
Craig seems like a plenty fast runner, with fast hands. He simply isn’t as adept as Foucan, who is an incredibly agile athlete.
The Iraqi president goes to Iran tomorrow for the summit. More on that then.
There will be immigration reform …Senator Kennedy and McCain are COMMITTED…and it anyone does not think that means alot then they do not understand the dynamics of the Senate… The action is not in the house for that now it is back to the Senate …they will get the Kennedy-McCain legislation back on course …but it will look more like what came out of the Judiciary Committee before all the amendments ..the Hagel/Martinez amendment will be dropped…The House will pass what the Senate proposes there is enough leadway for conservative DEMs to peel away if they choose and have it still pass…
There will be no immigration “reform.”