Spokesman for President Bush Posts on Free Republic About Immigration Bill

[tanyev]

Phew! Can you smell the desperation? Nicholas Thompson, from the White House Office of Strategic Initiatives, posted in one of their threads about immigration. They then started a new thread with his post which now has over 1500 replies. It's a fine line to navigate. Generally, it is in the WH's best interest to keep the Freepers lathered up at a rabid fever pitch. But when it backfires on them, then extraordinary measures must be used to try and calm the hysteria. Doesn't look like it's working too well.


Hi,

I just wanted to let you know that I just posted a response to the post "Penalty Mitigation in the Immigration Reform Bill."

The White House appreciates the opportunity to respond on Free Republic.

Response:
I would like to point out that the Secretary is authorized to reduce or mitigate penalities against employers who in good faith are trying to comply with the law. Certainly, we understand that not all employers knowingly hire illegal immigrants; this will remain the case, especially before the bill’s new secure documentation requirements are fully phased in. We do not seek to wrongly penalize honest employers who unknowingly hire illegal immigrants, therefore we reserve the right to reduce or mitigate their penalties if the employer can show good faith compliance in following the law.

For those employers who do knowingly hire illegal immigrants, please know that we intend to penalize these employers strongly, and the Administration has already stepped up these penalties in the last couple of years. For example, a 2005 program, “Operation Rollback,” assessed $15,000,000 in civil fines to employers, an amount greater than the sum of administrative fines collected in the previous eight years and was the largest worksite enforcement penalty in US history. In the first quarter of FY07, criminal and civil forfeitures have totaled $26,700,000 for employers.

As a reminder of what’s in the bill, fines for hiring an illegal worker are $5,000 maximum per illegal worker for the first offense, $10,000 maximum per illegal worker for the second, $25,000 maximum per illegal worker for the third , and $75,000 maximum per illegal worker for the fourth. In addition, the bill increases the maximum criminal penalty for a pattern or practice of unlawful hiring twenty-five-fold, from $3,000 to $75,000, and would impose a prison term of up to six months. This represents a significant increase in fines for employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants.

Nicholas Thompson
White House Office of Strategic Initiatives

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1850240/posts

[Hubert Flottz]

1. Why don't they splain to DU?

What are we, chopped liver?

[rug]

2. They do. Just search for all posts by shitforbrains.

[blondeatlast]

13. SFB has lotsa sockpuppets, too. nt

[theHandpuppet]

17. Hey, you got something against puppets?

;-)

[tanyev]

4. They've made it very clear that they don't care what we think.

Government of the 28%, by the 28%, for the 28%.

[ToeBot]

12. make that "for the 2%". nt

[rurallib]

3. Sure gives Freepers feelings of power and grandeur

Makes them think that they (freepers) really run the country and GWB better do what they say. Just what we need is a bevy of morons thinking they run the country.
Sure some interesting replies. Most noticeable is the freeper refusal to back down on any point. Good for them. I am thinking this bill will implode the pukes. And any candidate must kowtow to the very RW types to get the nomination which should make them unpalatable to about 75% of Americans.
Implode please!

Love this post:
One other thing: They need to put on a hair-shirt and publicly apologize for demonizing anybody who questions this bill as nativist, racist, unpatriotic bigots who would have opposed civil rights for blacks.

29 posted on 06/14/2007 11:23:41 AM PDT by lesser_satan (FRED THOMPSON '08)

Uh, OK

[alfredo]

5. So the FR does get its talking points straight from the Junta.

[SoCalDem]

22. So is Fred Thompson the lesser_satan?

or is our freeper friend a "little person" satan worshipper ?

[blogslut]

6. That's KKKarl's Office!

The Office of Strategic Initiatives is the name of Rove's operation:

Background

"This office is one of the new White House staff units established by President George W. Bush immediately following his inauguration," Bradley H. Patterson, Jr., wrote for AmericanPresident.org. "Its members report to the President's senior advisor (i.e., Karl Rove). The office is staffed by at least seven persons under a director of strategic initiatives who also has the title of deputy assistant to the President. It is colocated with a portion of Rove's personal staff on the fourth floor of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. The name of the office only slightly masks its real function: to focus on ideas and possible presidential actions which will contribute directly to the President's political standing."

"Strategery" Groups

"Once a week, the dozen most senior White House staffers walk over to Room 208 of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building for a brainstorming session," Dana Milbank wrote in the April 22, 2001, Washington Post.

"The meeting is one piece of an elaborate and integrated strategic planning effort Rove has imposed on the White House. In addition to the Strategery Group, Rove and White House Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card, Jr. have created a mid-level brainstorming group, dubbed the 'Conspiracy of the Deputies,' and an Office of Strategic Initiatives to oversee the whole process. Rove has also assembled an orbit of acolytes in half a dozen White House offices and at the Republican National Committee with instructions to work on long-term strategic planning for Bush's agenda," Milbank wrote. "The strategic initiatives office, which Card calls a 'think tank,' supports the long-term thinking of the dozen members of the Strategery Group and their deputies."

"The senior-level Strategery Group draws from all parts of the White House; it includes domestic policy adviser Margaret La Montagne, economic adviser Lawrence B. Lindsey, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, Card and his deputy, Joshua Bolten, communications specialists Karen P. Hughes, Margaret D. Tutwiler and Mary Matalin, staff secretary Harriet Miers, top lobbyist Nicholas Calio, and Rove."

source watch link: http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Office_of_Strategic_Initiatives
white house link: http://www.whitehouse.gov/government/off-descrp.html

[tanyev]

7. I guess somebody with a really strong stomach could go googling

and we could compile a list of all the RW blogs and forums they have reached out to on the immigration issue. I'm feeling a little off today, myself.

[blogslut]

9. I can dig it

I need to be working. But I just had to mention that little tidbit of info. :)

[bleever]

27. Excellent catch!

:thumbsup:

[proud2BlibKansan]

8. Sorry but I don't believe this for a second

or a nano-second.

[blogslut]

10. Did you read the FR post?

I know it's a nasty business but I did. Kristin seems so proud. Also there's a link to the actual post from the dude. I suppose it could be a scammer. It's not like FR is bastion of honesty.

[proud2BlibKansan]

15. So if I told you George Soros was paying me to post here

would you believe me? :)

[tanyev]

18. How can I get some of that action?

:)

[proud2BlibKansan]

23. I will recommend you to him

:)

[blogslut]

20. Nevah!

:)

[crikkett]

21. I'd ask if there were any more openings

I'm here all day anyway.

[proud2BlibKansan]

24. And another recommendation for George!

[tanyev]

25. Also a post on Red State by Kerrie Rushton from the same office.

I believe this was a coordinated effort, as described here:

The White House has done outreach to liberal religious and Hispanic groups and, at the suggestion of chief political strategist Karl Rove, made more use of the blogosphere on immigration than it has on any issue since President Bush took office, aides said...

...Aides said it was Rove's idea to focus on blogs. After vetting by policy experts, responses have been posted on a wide range of blogs under the names of Kerrie Rushton and Nicholas Thompson, both associate directors in the Office of Strategic Initiatives, which falls under Rove's domain.

"We had to be nimble," said White House Communications Director Kevin Sullivan, who is coordinating the administration's public relations strategy. "The idea was to not let inaccurate or misleading statements become part of the conventional wisdom."
http://lonewacko.com/blog/index.html



Wanted to take a moment to clarify what is in the bill regarding the Z program and convicted criminals and terrorists. The contention that they are not barred from the Z program has been making the rounds today.

The range of crimes that disqualify applicants from the Z program extends into the thousands and includes any felony (murder), any three misdemeanors (theft, although felony theft would be covered in the prior category), any aggravated felony (rape), any serious criminal offense (assault), most crimes involving moral turpitude (fraud), and any violation of a law relating to a controlled substance. These bars are not waivable by anyone -- period. You can view the bill language on this provision on pages 282 to 284.

Terrorists are not eligible for the legalization program. Period. And this bar is not waivable by anyone. Period. Again, this is spelled out on pages 282 and 284 of the bill, without ambiguity or room for debate. The bill also contains a whole host of new tools to fight criminal, dangerous, and terrorist aliens.

Thanks,
Kerrie Rushton
White House Office of Strategic Initiatives
http://www.redstate.com/blogs/krushtonwhitehouse/2007/jun/07/are_convicted_criminals_and_terrorists_barred_yes

[proud2BlibKansan]

29. Okay I have a confession to make

My name isn't really proud2blib. It's Hillary Clinton.

Bill says hi! :hi:

Now do you get it? :)

[tanyev]

33. The WH Office of Strategic Initiatives announced that they were going

to employ a strategy of trying to engage conservative blogs on the immigration issue. A couple days later, these posts appeared on conservative sites. I really don't think there's anything outlandish about accepting that they actually were written by people in Karl Rove's office. Believe whatever you want, Hillary.

[Palladin]

11. When I looked in at FR

yesterday, many of the Freeps were actually calling for Bush's impeachment, and a few were saying that he really
is the worst President in American history. My my how things change. Having some WH official post on FR is not going
to change the trend now. About the only thing left is for the RNC, the neocons, and the christian Zionist fundies to pull the financial plug
on FR, since they're off the reservation now and Robinson can't handle it. :applause:

[grasswire]

14. we had some discussion on an earlier post of this

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=3317917&mesg_id=3317917

[tanyev]

28. Oops. I searched before I posted, but I only searched in the thread title.

:blush:

[blondeatlast]

16. Google search on the name:

http://www.google.com/search?q=Nicholas+Thompson&hl=en&rls=com.microsoft:en-us:IE-SearchBox&rlz=1I7GGLH&start=0&sa=N

I ckicked on the entries closest to politics and found this, but both entries for the New America Foundation were dead. I paged down a couple and damn if he isn't there--as one of the "brightest American thinkers under 40":
http://www.newamerica.net/#

Read it at your own risk, I just ate!

[dkofos]

19. The word "knowingly" needs to be removed, from any and all Immigration

bills. This is the loophole used to hire illegals and then claim "I didn't know", when the company is caught with illegals working there.
It allows the corporations to play dumb, to use the Gonzo, "I don't know" defense.

It is time to first eliminate "ALL" the loopholes in the 86 immigration bill, and actually start enforcing it.

[UTUSN]

26. What about the 12 million already here?

(re-post from another thread)

This KENNEDY-Shrub plan: 1- Is a FIRST step. 2- Is better than the more wingnut alternatives. 3- Is a NIXON-in-China opportunity.

The most urgent of the opportunities is #3, NIXON-goes-to-China. People in border states KNOW Mexican-Americans, many of them on an individual basis, and even though racism also exists in the border states, there is still personal knowledge involved---unlike Tweety, O'LOOFAH, and on into the extremes of TANCREDO, SENSENBRENNER, MALKIN, the Minutemen.

This is the closest I've come to saying something positive about Shrub, that he has a fondness for Hispanics. He had SOME contact with them, whether as servants (I don't know this), his partying at the border, his sister-in-law, the laborers in in various failed businesses, his AWOL flights into Central and South America for drugs or CIA-Poppy. Jeb Crow Shrub has had various business parterships with Latinos for whatever nefarious ends.

In the paranoid '50s and '60s, paranoid of "Red" China, NO Democratic president would have been able to recognize China without being crucified, probably literally, by the John Birch Society. Only a weird straddler like NIXON--with his delusions of historicity--with his credentials as a Red-hunter, could have assured the brainwashed country that "Red" hordes would not be patrolling American streets if China were recognized.

So this is one of those moments. Shrub might not be so strong as Tricky Dick against his own flying monkeys. He collapsed on Aunt Harriet MIERS in the face of Laura INGRAHAM, fer gudness sakes. But if he doesn't do it, the next prez ain't going to do it, whether it's a wingnut president (without Shrub's border background) or a Dem, who will be crucified.

=========== Now, that said, there are some profound issuess: The creation of a sub-class exploited for labor and deprived of voting and other rights.


I say, this Shrub law is a first step. It is likely that this sub-class argument will lead to the SCOTUS, and even a reactionary wingnut SCOTUS cannot ignore the inequality. If this isn't taxation-without-representation, what is?


What is the alternative? Despite the vehemence of the wingnuts' opposition, I have never heard WHAT it is that TANCREDO, SENSENBRENNER, DOBBS, MALKIN, and the Minutemen WANT. I hear the part about "securing the border" (a financial boondoggle), but what about the 12 million? Do they seriously want DEPORTATION?

It's a first step. It's better than the alternative. It's a NIXON-in-China opportunity.

[dkofos]

30. They can leave and come in the front door, like the millions of

immigrants before them.

[UTUSN]

31. I'll bet the Native Americans are kicking themselves for not thinking of that!!1

Anybody who didn't come over that ice bridge needs to GO!!1

[Elspeth]

32. Why do I worry that middle class families will get busted for their handy men and nannies

while corporations will be allowed to hire undocumented workers in masses?