Speaking of America

How Washington really works, sadly. (At least 28 of Max Baucus’s former aides are now tax lobbyists http://t.co/UEkcOZTfZK)

Back in 2010 Barbara Olschner felt compelled to run for Congress in Floridas 2nd District, a generally Democratic district that many in the GOP felt was vulnerable.

At the end of last year, on Black Friday, Walmart workers bravely went out on strike.

by EZRA KLEIN, The Washington Post

There's little in President Obama's immigration-reform proposal that isn't, or couldn't be, in the Senate's proposal. There's little in the Senate's proposal that isn't, or couldn't be, in Obama's proposal."

Tuesday in Las Vegas, Obama touted the emerging consensus. “Yesterday, a bipartisan group of senators announced their principles for comprehensive immigration reform, which are very much in line with the principles I’ve proposed and campaigned on for the last few years,” he said.

That consensus has five parts. The first is that U.S. borders need to be secure, or as secure we can make them. But much of the work on that has been done. As Wonkblog’s Suzy Khimm points out, the measures of border security from the 2007 immigration bill have largely been achieved.

But border security can’t do everything. Even after sinking billions and billions into securing our borders, our “operational control” of the border — defined as our ability to quickly respond to any disturbance — is only in the range of 57 percent. That’s less evidence that we haven’t done enough than it is evidence that you can only do so much without simply having members of the National Guard link arms across all 1,967 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border.

The second piece of the consensus is that employers need to be checking the immigration status of employees. This sounds easy but is, in practice, very difficult. “The border security issue is, at this point, 90 to 95 percent solved,” says Frank Sharry, head of the pro-immigrant group America’s Voice. “Employer verification is, at this point, less than 10 percent solved.” Which system employers have to use, and the program is enforced and overseen, will be a key issue in the upcoming debate.

The third point of agreement is that there needs to be a path to citizenship. “And when we say the path to citizenship is a bottom-line demand we mean an accessible, viable path to citizenship,” says a Senate aide involved in the bipartisan Gang of 8 talks. That means no legalized limbo, in which undocumented immigrants are transitioned into a permanent second-class status. It also means that thecrux of this debate is likely to be over how long that path to citizenship takes, and which enforcement measures need to be met before it’s triggered. 

Crucially, Florida’s Sen. Marco Rubio has emerged as a major Republican supporter of a real path to citizenship, and he’s been mounting an exhaustive campaign to sell the idea in the conservative media. Nor is he alone. “The U.S. should not want a permanent class of residents who can never be citizens and thus have less incentive to adapt to U.S. cultural mores, speak English, or move out of segregated ethnic enclaves,” wrote the Wall Street Journal’s editorial board.

The freshman senator from Maine talks about watching the filibuster reform process unfold, and his plan to make government deadlines less dumb. (.@dylanmatt interviews Sen.

Ivy Leaguers don’t need advice on how to preserve their privilege. (The Secrets of Princeton http://t.co/hAtoauNJNr)

With news of record corporate profits and increased bonuses for those at the top of the financial heap — and on-going income stagnation, job loss, and rising poverty for those in the middle and bottom of the ladder—it’s maddening for progressives...

Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) called a new federal law cracking down on the illegal sale of weapons to criminals “a solution in search of a problem.” His colleagues on the Senate Judiciary Committee appear to agree, as all but one Republican voted...

THE DEMOCRACY IS FOR PEOPLE AMENDMENT is here! Introduced by Sen. Bernie Sanders and Congressman Ted Deutch this... http://t.co/yZxq6iiiS7

Truth is, MoveOn's Joan Blades - clad in Lululemon yoga pants and clogs - and Mark Meckler, sporting a leather cowboy vest, boots and a belt buckle larger than a baby's head - have been talking online and over the phone for a few years now.

“As remarkable as these trends are, they are unlikely to amount to more than an small sideshow on the margins of the mainstream if the only way we can conceive of confronting corporate power and bringing about a new economy is through our buying decisions… What we really need to do is change the underlying policies that shape our economy. We can’t do that through the sum of our individual behavior in the marketplace. We can only do it by exercising our collective power as citizens.”