Hate rules
by digby
In my piece this morning at Salon, I talk about how the nativists are succeeding in thwarting the corporatists in the GOP. It's hard to believe, I know, but the far right haters actually have the upper hand over money:
The minute they saw John Boehner making the tiniest of moves toward a compromise bill, they went to work. Led by right-wing crank Steve King of Iowa, a group opposed to CIR was quickly mobilized. It seems some newer members hadn’t been properly schooled in GOP partisan politics:
“The new Republicans in the House and Senate — you know how their mind worked?” said Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), a key senator involved in the effort. “It was, ‘We need to end the lawlessness at the border and build a fence but I love immigrants and I really think we should welcome immigrants and we need more immigrants.’”
“Well, that sounds good on the campaign trail, but few of them had actually read data about we admit a million on a path to citizenship every year, we have 600,000 guest workers in addition every year,” Sessions continued. “Few of them had asked themselves, in a time of high unemployment and slow growth, you want to increase the number?”
Yes, that Jeff Sessions, the man whose racist past was so notorious he couldn’t get confirmed for a seat on the federal bench. King’s group in the House and a Senate group including Tea Party leaders Ted Cruz and Mike Lee met frequently and bombarded Boehner’s annual House GOP retreat with hysterical propaganda when the Speaker deigned to release a tepid set of “principles” that might lead to some sort of compromise.
Read on. Money uber alles --- except for hate. Hate rules.