On his second day on the job, Sen. Al Franken voted against an amendment to a bill which would require 700 miles of fence to be constructed along the Mexican border by 2011.
The measure passed by 54-44 with Democratic leadership largely opposing it - though Sen. Amy Klobuchar voted for it.
On his campaign Web site, Franken dismisses the necessity of border walls. “No wall is high enough to keep people from coming over it – or under it – if there are jobs waiting on the other side.”
Update: Spokeswoman Jess McIntosh wrote in an e-mail that Sen. Franken opposed the amendment because “none of the relevant effective law enforcement agencies were asking for it.”
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46 Responses to "Franken votes against border wall requirement"
“No wall is high enough to keep people from coming over it – or under it – if there are jobs waiting on the other side.”
I think the point, Stuart, is that if they want jobs, they can go through the checkpoint like everyone else….not over/under a wall. Anyone know if Franken has a fence around his yard?
It seems to me we need both a wall and an improved immigration policy, including much expanded work permits for persons who want to fill the low pay or physically hard jobs our citizens seem to not want.
On the other hand, if they paid better, perhaps American citizens would take some of those jobs.
But that, of course, would mean prices would have to go up on manual labor intensive things like fruits and vegetables, roofs, and the like.
For the hard jobs, though, it seems like paying more might just give more incentive for border jumpers without some legal access.
I have mixed thoughts about this one, but generally support a fence if only to enhance respect for our laws.
The American Right and its security “walls”. It’ll have a huge effect on illegal immigration, I’m sure….and John accepts it purely as a “symbol” of “respect”.
Their “Illegal Invasion” wall puts our “conservatives” in the same camp with the hard right Israeli likudniks and their apartheid “wall” and Khruschev and his Berlin Wall. How’d those walls work out as “symbols”, John? Think they generated much international “respect” for the wall builders?
Oh well, build your crucial Invasion Wall, conservatives—it’s just more gub’mint stimulus and jobs from constructing it. Except the Right is also against wasteful infrastructure programs as stimulus. Unless they’re aimed at the demonic “illegals” I guess!
Building a wall to help stop the massive invasion of illegal aliens would be an example of tax money wisely spend and explains why Franken is against it. I would guess that for every dollar we spend on keeping the illegals out, we save five on welfare, medical, prison, and other costs.
WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama promised to fix health care and trim the federal budget deficit, all without raising taxes on anyone but the wealthiest Americans. It’s a promise he’s already broken and will likely have to break again. Obama and the Democratic-controlled Congress have already increased tobacco taxes — which disproportionately hit the poor — to pay for extending health coverage to 4 million children in working low-income families.
Now, lawmakers are looking for more revenues to help pay for providing medical insurance to millions more who lack it at a projected cost of $1 trillion over the next decade.
The floated proposals include increasing taxes on alcohol, which could raise $62 billion over the next decade, and a new tax on sugary drinks such as soda, which could raise $52 billion.
Senate Democrats this week pretty much rejected a proposal by Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., to tax health benefits, an idea that Obama repeatedly criticized during the presidential election campaign but has refused to take off the table.
Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said negotiators are still looking for revenue alternatives. Asked during an interview with The Associated Press if they included tax increases on families with incomes less than $250,000 a year, Schumer said, “There are lots of things on the table now.”
“Not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes,” Obama told a crowd in Dover, N.H., last year.
I’m not posting this because I’m upset at the prospect of paying more taxes, I think that anyone who thought they wouldn’t, given the financial state of the nation, is a fool.
I’m posting to remind everyone what the Big Lie was that the Dems told the masses to get themselves in power.
“… Except the Right is also against wasteful infrastructure programs as stimulus. Unless they’re aimed at the demonic “illegals” I guess!”
Conservatives are also ostensibly (and even ostentatiously) against government taking of personal property. Yet property rights have been trampled to build the parts of the border fence already built.
In one example (seen on PBS’s NOW 7/3/09)80% of a Texas land grant from Spain, held by the owners’family since before the American Revolution,was rendered useless to its owners when the fence went in. According to the federal authorities the “no man’s land” between river and fence still remains the property of its owners and still has value, so the land hasn’t actually been seized. But how the owners would have use of or access to this property is unexplained.
“80% of a Texas land grant from Spain, held by the owners’family since before the American Revolution,was rendered useless to its owners when the fence went in.”
Kind of reminds me of what happened to the owners of private land in the NW when the environmentalists used the Spotted Owl to stop logging. Millions of lost revenue for the counties and their school districts. No the Spotted Owl is being displaced naturaly by the Barred Owl.
In the past several months, his overall approval rating in Ohio dropped from 62 percent to 49 percent. Obama’s economic approval rating among independent voters plummeted from 51 percent to 33 percent. His independent economic approval rating is only 38 percent.
Rasmussen now has his approval rating at a new low at -5.
But maybe things are better in Virginia.
Nope, his approval is only 48% in Virginia. Only 38% of independents say he’s doing well and 52% disapprove.
No wonder the libs keep trying to change the subject. Didn’t they push the porkulous package through on their own? Shouldn’t they be proclaiming it’s huge success in saving/creating jobs? Where is the pride in their accomplishments?
And what are the libs doing now about the economy? They don’t seem to have time to worry about it since they are too busy on health care and pollution. Or maybe they are too busy running the auto companies? I am sure they will get back to the economy soon.
They needed to stop the clear cutting up there GO - it was getting out of control, spotted owl or not.
It all depends on what you think a National Forest should be — a forest ecosystem or a tree plantation. People had been living off logging up there for many, many years, and it just wasn’t sustainable anymore. If they had kept going at the rate they were, they’d have some serious water quality issues by now (worse than what’s already going on.) Assuming you feel that’s important.
GO, What’s the scoop on sale and use of non-phosphate detergents in Oregon? Of course it’s a clean water issue, but does use of these mandatory substitutes for popular dishwasher and laundry soaps yield results as unsatisfactory as some Oregono’s complain they are? Not my experience in MN. But then the water’s not that hard in Mpls.
“They needed to stop the clear cutting up there GO - it was getting out of control, spotted owl or not.”
Sarge,
Old Growth - Yes
Bastard Growth (trees left standing after initial logging 100 years ago) - No.
I’m talking private owners abutting (heh I said Butt heh) Public lands.
Clear cutting is ugly, sure but to leave edge rows is a joke for they get knocked down during the slightest wind storm. The majority of clear cuts are replanted within a year. If not there is a higher tax on the logged trees. This is also good business for the next crop. They state has instituted a 100 foot buffer from wetland and water shed boundaries to mitigate water quality issues. And yes I do feel that is important.
But to shut down whole tracts of land from logging to help a critter that is being displaced naturally is a joke.
“GO, What’s the scoop on sale and use of non-phosphate detergents in Oregon?”
Adlib,
Never heard of it. It may be a Willamette Valley ordinance. The Willamette Valley is the main water shed west of the cascades running north from its headwaters into the Columbia River with a wide variety of unique wetland ecosystems. Oregon doesn’t have the standing water volume MN has. I may be a Salmon Recovery recommendation but as far as I know its not a state wide law.
Sarge,
Whats your thoughts on the Uighur/Han Chinese riots and outcome? Being a large oil producing and Muslum area we are already seeing, as expected, a massive push by the milatary. How ingrained (generational) is the anger against the Han by the Uinghrs?
CNC says:
No wonder the libs keep trying to change the subject. Didn’t they push the porkulous package through on their own? Shouldn’t they be proclaiming it’s huge success in saving/creating jobs? Where is the pride in their accomplishments?
And what are the libs doing now about the economy? They don’t seem to have time to worry about it since they are too busy on health care and pollution. Or maybe they are too busy running the auto companies? I am sure they will get back to the economy soon.
Yes, what will they now do without Palin. Time to look in the mirror and see that ugly,ugly face, Demmies.
Cash, I hope you have been laughing out loud at the Obama/Biden show. They cant even agree on their OWN policy!
Biden: Israel can determine what to do with Iran
Obama: now wait a minute…….
Biden: we “misread” the economy.
Obama: no, no we didnt misread it…..
GAWD, these are the leaders, and they are like a bad comedy act.
Now wonder N. Korea acts like our leaders buffoons—the clowns are in charge!
Rahm Emanuel: the White House would be willing to consider a “trigger” clause on a public option — to delay full implementation of the plan if insurance companies met certain conditions on coverage and cost.
Obama: Ah, well, as I have said before, ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh
“Certainly, I don’t think we can make a determination as to whether or not that’s been successful — certainly as successful as we want it to be, certainly not as quickly as we want it to be,” Hoyer, of Maryland, told reporters.
Ha! That’s just funny. I get what he’s trying to say, but what he’s actually saying is asinine.
God, the level of The Pollwatcher’s intellectual dishonesty, or just gross stupdity, is mindblowing. He’ll say anything, like a good conservative cogdog.
For years “conservatives” told us that there isn’t all that much that presidents and congresses can do to affect short term economic data—like quarterly job creation. And that business cycles were the major component of deficits. This was done to defend Bush’s endless jobless recovery and massive deficits for Oil Wars and tax cuts for the rich, as though his policies would ultimately work. (They never did–quite the opposite.)
Now, massive economic bailouts and stimulus packages are supposed to have substantial employment effects 3-5 months after passage. And deficits during the greatest recession since the Depression are outrageously dangerous and need to be “fixed” immediately via spending cuts (somewhere—never specified of course). This during a depression.
Obama’s economic plan hasn’t been fully enacted yet, and Repubs will (continue) opposing every aspect of it, every step of the way, while maliciously demanding “action!” And cogs like Cash will be watching the daily polls and gorging on right wing sewage and lies.
Reform of health care is a big part of the overall economic plan, because health care costs have been inhibiting job creation for quite some time, as well as encouraging outsourcing and permanent job cuts by American business. So the current health care debate IS part of the economic package, but Cash is too braindead, stupid, or poisoned to “understand” that.
Similarly, conservatives carp “where are all the new jobs gonna come from?” as the bitterly oppose the new energy bill (with cap and trade) which will (finally!) begin the process of shifting us away from (destructive) fossil fuel and toward renewable energy and technology. That will be a substantial shift into entirely new industries which will create manufacturing, construction and managerial positions, just as it has done in other countries that had the foresight to begin the shift ahead of us.
By delaying so long on moving to renewables, we shot ourselves in the foot, just like we did with bioscience and Bush’s absurd prohibitions on stem cell research.
And of course, the Pollwatching Fool ignores the new financial regulations being proposed by Obama—I suppose they have nothing to do with “the economy” either, right Cash? And I bet you’ll be supporting that “action” too!
All in all, Cash is the perfect fool.
Oh and 6DJ, Alaska has now conformed that the state handles all ethics complaints filed against the governor, ConLady Palin. So her claims of new massive personal legal costs from ethics complaints are more lies.
As Dora said above, Palin is paying off the Repub lawyers she hired to obstruct the AK Troopergate investigation last fall—it was in all the papers. The one where she was found to have violated state ethics laws. Of course, you “missed” it.
So you’ve been lied to again, and taken another Palin the Grifter story hook line and sinker. Now, “laugh” until you pass out.
Oh and 6DJ, Alaska has now conformed that the state handles all ethics complaints filed against the governor, ConLady Palin. So her claims of new massive personal legal costs from ethics complaints are more lies.
Right, you and Dora have, of course, seen the billable hours from her private law firm. As with the latest truly laugh out loud Coulter column, the LIBS cant stop talking about Palin—she MUST be a big threat in 2012!
Go figure.
Or has someone hacked her private computer records, like they did last year with her YAHOO acct (add that to the church burnings, rape jokes, legal bills etc, that again prove why no sane person seeks political office). That hacker was a Dem, right Sarge?
HAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHA
GAWD, how pathetic you people are for someone who is stepping down.
Yet, along with Maureen Douty, the ugliness of your beloved leaders makes changing the subject MANDATORY.
Obviously, you missed Gerson’s column in today’s paper. So much for your economic insights…….
Obama, compared to the captain of the Titanic, even caribou Barbie has NOT had that insult thrown at her…….
The amazing thing: the economic pain will worsen in the next 6 months, and people are already crabby.
PS
Dora, while snivelingly pathetic in her analysis of “her guys,” ie Hows that TRUTH COMISSION coming? I heard the Dems have moved to block it…….
“latest truly laugh out loud Coulter column….Gerson’s column in today’s paper”
Well, this helps explain your utter brainlessness—do you read anything but hack “conservative” columnist/pundits?
As I’ve indicated before, the greatest success of the conservative movement was the creation of a “market” for this mountain of conservative horse-sh*t, to be fed to braindead idiots who were programmed to demand–exclusively–conservative “news” and baseless opinion.
6DJ, you are an unthinking cog in that target market, a conservative sewage gobbler, created by the movement. You exist so that Coulter can manufacture her lies and nonsense. She supplies the daily lies and propaganda you demand as a braindead “conservative”.
As to Palin, 6DJ, the point is if the state defends her on that “barrage” of ethics complaints, why is she (supposedly) hiring private lawyers at all? (Note first of all that she hasn’t even stated that she has really done this). But why generate the (purported) personal expenses, especially if the claims are indeed frivolous?
Maybe Coulter or Gerson will write a conserva-column on it tomorrow if the “demand” is great enough. But you could try using your brain yourself sometime.
“NOBODY…NOBODY should have a damn purse that cost 875$ NOBODY !!!”
Now I see the communist in you, Tiny. I agree, Comrade, such conspicuous consumption is an affront to the masses whose labor is being exploited by the ruling elite. Power to the people!
“Now I see the communist in you, Tiny. I agree, Comrade, such conspicuous consumption is an affront to the masses whose labor is being exploited by the ruling elite. Power to the people!”
Have you heard about the boom on Mizar Five
People got to shout to stay alive
They don’t even have policeman one
Doesn’t matter where you been or what you’ve done
Do you have a dark spot on your past
Leave it to my man he’ll fix it fast
Pepe has a scar from ear to ear
He will make your mug shots disappear
“GOP can just about kiss goodbye any support from Latinos. How happy does it make Kyl or Cornyn who have large Latino populations in their states?”
Dora, you must be very proud of your democrat soci@list party. They are doing everything in their power to push for illegal alien amnesty and open borders despite the resulting serious economic and other consequences, simply because the libs know that they can count of their votes. Americans should be outraged.
The vast majority of immigrant latinos with vote liberal democrat in hopes of amnesty and redistribution of wealth, and this is a problem.
“When the people find they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.”
-Benjamin Franklin
Thorstein Veblen’s Theory of the Leisure Class written in 1899 still makes for an entertaining read.
The city’s pet population, especially dogs,is high. The more un-useful the animal the higher the prestige attached to its ownership, although there are admittedly a few hounds that actually hunt. On the other hand animals such as sheep which would keep lawns cropped, furnish high quality and odorless fertilizer for gardens, produce wool, perhaps offspring and /or milk etc. ….are banned.
Instead most citizens possess pets that have no utility except for the best of show contest, use gasoline powered lawn mowers to manicure their lawns at least as well as their neighbors and discard the clippings, etc. Such conspicuous consumption just to be like our peers or a cut above them, Veblen argues, provides a basis for luxury taxation.
Hey D2 isn’t paying a tax for the license to pollute a lot like Cap and Trade?
“NOBODY…NOBODY should have a damn purse that cost 875$ NOBODY !!!”
John Stuart Mill arguing in favor of luxury taxes (sumptuary laws)…made the following reservation…”I disclaim all asceticism, and by no means wish to see discouraged, either by law or opinion, any indulgence (consistent with the means and obligations of the person using it) which is sought from a genuine inclination for, and enjoyment of, the thing itself; but a great portion of the expenses of the higher and middle classes in most countries [is incurred] from regard to opinion, and an idea that certain expenses are expected from them, as an appendage of station; and I cannot but think that expenditure of this sort is a most desirable subject of taxation.”
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