CBS: Get Ready for the Congressional "Terrorama" (Zing aimed at the RW)

[pampango]

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/12/15/opinion/main7152648.shtml

There are some things to be thankful for. The woman who puzzled over Hispanics in her audience of high-school students and suggested they looked “Asian” was defeated in her run for the Senate in Nevada. The guy who called Islam a cult was knocked out of the Kentucky gubernatorial race. The bizarre candidate who threatened to “take out” a reporter was brushed aside in his bid for the governorship of New York.

Despite the electoral failures of Sharron Angle, Ron Ramsey, Carl Paladino, and a host of others inhabiting what used to be America’s political peripheries, the next Congress will have a decidedly fringy tone. No wonder the wilder types already there are looking forward to the January 2011 legislative session with such relish: so many investigations crying out to be launched; so many dictators and thugs still hanging on in Cuba, Iran, North Korea, and Venezuela; terrorism in the streets of Portland; foreign terrorists flocking to America; secret government documents splayed across the front pages of our newspapers.

Immigration - Foreigners and terrorists: Really, what’s the difference? That the nation has grown and prospered precisely because of adaptive immigration is beside the point, an obvious reflection of someone caught in the old mindset of the September 10th world. Interestingly, though, only about 8% of those who cast ballots in the 2010 election cited immigration concerns as their primary motivator. Of those who did, however, nearly 70% were Republicans.

With their new House majority, the Republicans plan to pay some major attention to that 8% of the motivated electorate. Immigration matters will play out largely in two key House committees, Homeland Security and Judiciary, and critical members of each committee told me they intend to investigate past actions of the Obama administration “fully and completely,” block any kind of comprehensive immigration reform, expose supposed lax enforcement of immigration laws and inadequate resources devoted to -- as one Judiciary member put it -- “boots on the ground.” Terrorism will play a key role in hearings on virtually all these topics, most dramatically, no doubt, in focusing attention on what Republicans view as a shadowy Latin network of terrorist infiltrators seeking to exploit the U.S. failure to protect its own southern border.

[Andy823]

1. Always a hot button issue!

Republicans "USE" immigration to rally the base, and to scare people, yet it's the republicans that "WANT" the cheap labor force, and who never do anything to try and come up with any kind of a "REA" immigration plan! If there were a "real" immigration plan the right wing employers could not keep wages down by hiring illegals. It's all a bunch of BS they use every year, and I am sure the tea party gang has to be pandered to. Republicans won't do a damn thing to come up with a real solution to the problem, not while their pockets are being lined with money from those employers who hire the illegals so they can exploit them!

[gratuitous]

2. Heaven forbid CBS mention this in their coverage

The media chuckleheads know the cynical, manipulative games that are going on. They opinionate about them. But you won't see the least hint in their reporting that when Republicans are bloviating on about nonexistent "threats" they're just trying to gin up the fear, and playing to a very small segment of the electorate.

Nauseating.