I wasn't sure what to expect in last night's speech given all the conflicting reports of what it [allegedly] would say and do and where it could be seen ~ my local NBC affiliate ran the speech itself, with no after-speech commentary ~ it was short by "major speech standards", running about 15 minutes ~ Obama delivered very solid comments, dotting every "i" and crossing every "t" ~ I still expect more major uproar from the GOP/TPers, but Obama dealt with that too by delivering the best line of the speech when he said if House GOP/TPers [paraphrasing here] "don't like this EO, pass a bill" ~ there are some "live links" to more/corroborating information in the original ~ Sooz

‘We were strangers once, too’
11/21/14 08:00 AM—Updated 11/21/14 08:10 AM
By Steve Benen

It’s not every day that a leader can make an important, material difference in the lives of roughly 5 million people. It’s what made President Obama’s announcement last night such a breakthrough moment – with congressional Republicans unwilling or unable to act, the president found a way to improve the immigration system on his own, changing the national landscape for millions of families.


I saw some suggestions last night that Obama extended “legal status” to undocumented immigrants. That’s incorrect – the White House policy extends temporary status to a limited group of immigrants and shields them from deportation threats. They’ll be eligible to work legally in the United States, but as Obama noted in his remarks, further action would require statutory changes that only Congress can approve.

Indeed, one of the striking things about the president’s speech was the degree to which he anticipated critics’ arguments, explaining in advance why they’re incorrect.

Republicans will say Obama’s been lax on border security, so he reminded the nation that he increased border security and pushed illegal border crossings to a four-decade low. Republicans will say Obama hasn’t worked in a bipartisan way with Congress, so he reminded viewers that he worked with both parties on the popular and bipartisan Senate bill. Republicans will say Obama’s actions are unprecedented, so he reminded everyone that his new actions are “the same kinds of actions taken by Democratic and Republican presidents before me.”

Republicans will say Obama’s policy is “amnesty,” so the president explained, “Amnesty is the immigration system we have today – millions of people who live here without paying their taxes or playing by the rules, while politicians use the issue to scare people and whip up votes at election time. That’s the real amnesty – leaving this broken system the way it is.”

All of which is wrapped up with an emotional appeal that dovetails with the substantive merits: “Scripture tells us that we shall not oppress a stranger, for we know the heart of a stranger – we were strangers once, too. My fellow Americans, we are and always will be a nation of immigrants. We were strangers once, too.”

Will the policy help? Clearly, yes. Is the policy fair? Indeed, that’s the point. Is the policy pro-family? Obviously. But is the policy legal?

The Justice Department last night took the unusual step of publishing a dense, 33-page legal memo, explaining in great detail exactly why the president’s executive actions are, in fact, legally permissible. It created a powerful contrast: Republican have angry tweets; the White House has a 33-page document from the DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel citing actual laws, court rulings, and precedents.

Kevin Drum did a great job breaking down the legal debate into easily digestible pieces: Obama has the authority to engage in prosecutorial discretion; the law allows the executive to exempt categories of people from prosecution; and there’s ample precedent for these kinds of actions.


In the larger context, the president deserves a lot of credit for showing real leadership here. Congressional Republicans clearly aren’t impressed, but if they don’t like it, they can do as Obama suggested last night and “pass a bill.”

[Video of full speech accessible via end link]

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/we-were-strangers-once-too#break

The 3 most resonating words in last night's speech: "pass a bill" ~ that should become the newest D meme ~ it's the perfect stock answer to all GOP/TPer howling ~ Sooz

Obama To GOP: Don't Want Me Acting Alone On Deportations? 'Pass A Bill'
By Sahil Kapur Published November 20, 2014, 8:21 PM EST

President Barack Obama delivered a message to Republicans who fiercely oppose his long-anticipated executive actions to overhaul immigration enforcement and deportations: pass a bill and I'll undo my changes.

"To those members of Congress who question my authority to make our immigration system work better, or question the wisdom of me acting where Congress has failed, I have one answer: pass a bill," he said during a prime time address on Thursday night announcing his actions. "I want to work with both parties to pass a more permanent legislative solution. And the day I sign that bill into law, the actions I take will no longer be necessary."

Obama cast his moves in the language of responsibility, fairness and family values, even invoking scripture, saying that "undocumented immigrants who desperately want to embrace those responsibilities see little option but to remain in the shadows, or risk their families being torn apart."

Obama's actions will shift immigration enforcement toward the more dangerous targets, and pave the way for nearly 5 million undocumented people to apply for 3-year legal status and work permits. He intends to expand the 2012 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals plan by lifting the age limit, and create a new program shielding undocumented parents of U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents from deportation, according to the White House.

Invoking the Senate-passed immigration bill, Obama said the Republican-led House forced him to act alone by refusing to take up immigration legislation.

"For a year and a half now, Republican leaders in the House have refused to allow that simple vote," he said.

In a video message before Obama's speech, House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) attacked the president for seeking to act on his own. "That's just not how our democracy works," he said. "That president has said before that he's not king, and that he's not an emperor. But he's sure acting like one."

The conservative backlash is shaping up to be ferocious. House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA) lambasted Obama's announcement in a statement.

"The president's proposed actions today are lawless, unconstitutional, and are a direct insult to the American people," Scalise said. "Earlier this month, when voters went to the polls, they sent a strong message to Washington: the American people rejected President Obama’s agenda and want Washington to start working for them, not a go-it-alone president hell-bent on forcing his radical agenda via subterfuge."

Obama pushed back on Republicans who have floated a strategy that would lead to a government shutdown unless he backs down and reverses his actions.

"Congress certainly shouldn’t shut down our government again just because we disagree on this," Obama said. "Americans are tired of gridlock. What our country needs from us right now is a common purpose – a higher purpose."

Obama spoke about the issue in personal terms, saying some of the young people he wants to protect from deportation are "as American as" his own two daughters.

"I’ve seen the heartbreak and anxiety of children whose mothers might be taken away from them just because they didn’t have the right papers. I’ve seen the courage of students who, except for the circumstances of their birth, are as American as Malia or Sasha; students who bravely come out as undocumented in hopes they could make a difference in a country they love. These people – our neighbors, our classmates, our friends – they did not come here in search of a free ride or an easy life. They came to work, and study, and serve in our military, and above all, contribute to America’s success."

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/obama-speech-immigration-executive-actions

ultimately, this is a political gut punch and a call to action for the GOP. if they do nothing the next two years, it is @ their own peril. i mean that. i am not just being cute.

Ten bucks say the GOP will either do nothing other than call for yet another lawsuit or they come up with a bill combined with a repeal of Obama care or a tax cut for the top 0.1 % or cut veterans' benefits.

No bet, jab ~

Sooz

VOILA! ~ here is the full video of last night's speech ~ Sooz

My 10 buck says the GOP will huff and puff and blow... smoke.

To say that GOP/TPers are malevolent/evil/bullying bastards is a gross UNDERstatement ~ ~ there are "live links" to more/corroborating information in the original ~ Sooz

The Absolute Worst Reactions To Obama’s Immigration Action
by Nicole Flatow Posted on November 21, 2014 at 11:49 am Updated: November 21, 2014 at 1:27 pm

In announcing a plan for executive action on immigration Thursday, President Barack Obama did something similar to every president since Dwight Eisenhower — including Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. In fact, presidents have deferred the deportations of immigrants at least 39 times over the past 60 years, in orders that have affected as much as 40 percent of the undocumented immigrant population.

But to watch Republican commentary surrounding Obama’s announcement, one would have thought there was a constitutional apocalypse. Sen. Jeff Session (R-AL) warned that “the president is endangering our entire constitutional order.” House Judiciary Chair Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) said Obama’s “rogue” action “threatens to unravel our government’s system of checks.” And Rep. Steve King (R-IA) was ready to move forward with a three-step plan for all-out government obstruction and political retribution.

These weren’t even the most outrageous reactions to Obama’s announcement to take executive action on immigration. Here are some of the most offensive things lawmakers had to say:

Obama may be a criminal. Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL) didn’t “have the citation at the tip of his tongue,” but he nonetheless claimed Obama might be guilty of a felony for aiding or abetting a foreigner to enter the United States, according to Slate. Brooks made the claim early Thursday before Obama released the details of his plan, so Brooks said he couldn’t be sure. But he added that Obama might end up in jail. “At some point, you have to evaluate whether the president’s conduct aids or abets, encourages, or entices foreigners to unlawfully cross into the United States of America,” he continued. “That has a five-year in-jail penalty associated with it.”

Obama’s action could provoke ethnic cleansing. Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach stoked fears about ethnic cleansing in a radio interview discussing President Obama’s planned executive action earlier this week, posted by Right Wing Watch. When a caller worried that “when one culture or one race or one religion overwhelms another culture or race,” they “run them out or kill them,” Kobach responded by suggesting that Obama’s lawlessness could indeed lead to what he identified as ethnic cleansing. Kobach, who earned his anti-immigrant reputation as one of the architects of the notorious Arizona anti-immigrant law SB 1070 that was partly invalidated by the U.S. Supreme Court, explained:


The executive order is intended to turn America socialist. Kobach had another gem in the week leading up to Obama’s order. During the same radio program, he warned that Obama’s real plan was to create “newly legalized voters” who would favor socialism. “The long term strategy of, first of all, replacing American voters with illegal aliens, recently legalized, who then become U.S. citizens,” Kobach said. “There is still a decided bias in favor of bigger government not smaller government. So maybe this strategy of replacing American voters with newly legalized aliens, if you look at it through an ethnic lens, … you’ve got a locked in vote for socialism,” TPM reported.

The executive action is offensive to blacks and Hispanics. Count on Rep. Louis Gohmert (R-TX) to revive the anti-immigrant refrain that immigration reform hurts African Americans. In remarks to Fox News’ Sean Hannity after Obama’s national address Thursday night, Gohmert doubled down on this claim, saying that Obama’s action is “so offensive” to both African Americans and Hispanics “who have an enormously high unemployment rate.” He then inferred that the 4.9 million immigrants who are being granted deportation relief from Obama would take others’ jobs at a 1-to-1 ratio, saying, “that’s going to leave 5 million people out in the cold.”

In fact, many undocumented immigrants are already providing low-wage labor. And economists have repeatedly found that in addition to reform being a net positive for the American economy, immigrants have a small but positive effect on the wages and job prospects of low-wage American workers, because they tend to fill complementary jobs, and are more willing to move locations when labor demand shifts. Hispanics and African Americans also overwhelmingly support immigration reform.

Undocumented immigrants are illiterate and likely to commit widespread voter fraud. Even Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) immediately winced when he heard outgoing Tea Party darling Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) warn that Obama’s action will create illiterate immigrant voters. “The social cost will be profound on the U.S. taxpayer — millions of unskilled, illiterate, foreign nationals coming into the United States who can’t speak the English language,” Bachmann told reporters the Wednesday before Obama’s address. And when the Washington Post asked Bachmann how she knew that, she said, “I’ve been down to the border.” She added that she was sure that those who aren’t citizens are likely to successfully commit widespread voter fraud. “Even though the president says they won’t be able to vote, we all know that many, in all likelihood, will vote. … People do vote without being a citizen. It’s a wink and a nod, we all know it’s going to happen.”

http://thinkprogress.org/immigration/2014/11/21/3595215/the-most-offensive-reactions-to-obamas-executive-action/

Paul Krugman's human decency is simply yet another reason to LOVE him ~ ~ there are "live links" to more/corroborating information in the original ~ Sooz

AlterNet / By Janet Allon
Paul Krugman Destroys All Arguments Against Obama's Immigration Action
"It's a simple matter of human decency."

November 21, 2014 | Now, that Obama has taken his much-needed and way overdue executive action to shield millions of undocumented families from heart-rending deportation, the fact that it was simply the right thing to do is abundantly clear. It also gives columnist Paul Krugman an opportunity to wax lyrical about his own family's immigrant roots, and one of his favorite tourist attractions in New York City, the Tenement Museum on the Lower East Side. "When you tour the museum, you come away with a powerful sense of immigration as a human experience, which — despite plenty of bad times, despite a cultural climate in which Jews, Italians, and others were often portrayed as racially inferior — was overwhelmingly positive," he writes in his Friday column. "I get especially choked up about the Baldizzi apartment from 1934. When I described its layout to my parents, both declared, “I grew up in that apartment!” And today’s immigrants are the same, in aspiration and behavior, as my grandparents were — people seeking a better life, and by and large finding it."

President Obama’s new immigration initiative, Krugman says, is "a simple matter of human decency."

Krugman goes on to parse the issue, and to point out that supporting the humane treatment of children born in this country to undocumented immigrant parents is not the same as supporting completely open borders. Under F.D.R., he points out, "Once immigration restrictions were in place, and immigrants already here gained citizenship, this disenfranchised class at the bottom shrank rapidly, helping to create the political conditions for a stronger social safety net. And, yes, low-skill immigration probably has some depressing effect on wages, although the available evidence suggests that the effect is quite small."

Yes, it is normal to be conflicted about immigration issues, Krugman allows. What is not normal is the desire to punish innocent children, who are already here, for their parents' decision to bend the rules to give them a better life. Predictably, as we all know, there are far too many right-wing zealots and haters in politics and the media who are quite happy to exact this punishment. Krugman:


Krugman gets downright sentimental about the issue, stating his belief that Americans are simply not "that cruel." And anyway a crackdown on these families would cost money, which Republicans don't want to spend. (One hopes.) The real question is how they should be treated, he asks. His answer is not only humane but economical.


But more importantly, it's the humane thing to do.

http://www.alternet.org/economy/paul-krugman-destroys-all-arguments-against-obamas-immigration-action?paging=off&current_page=1#bookmark

Krugman gets downright sentimental about the issue, stating his belief that Americans are simply not "that cruel."

What rock does he live under? Doesn't he remember the anti-immigrant laws in Arkansas and Arizona? The effect on American citizens was horrendous with many farmers forced into bankruptcy while their crops rotted in the fields. Under Republican domination, Americans are prepared to inflict all sorts of cruelties on both themselves and the "other" as long as those cruelties satisfy some sort of ideological craving no matter how misguided.