So when Sen. Marco Rubio disagreed with the prevailing assumption that the Gang of Eight immigration bill had at least the 60 votes necessary to overcome a filibuster by his GOP colleagues, he knew something the rest of us didn’t know: he was counting himself as a “no” vote. And it turns out he’s been working behind the scenes with John Cornyn (who voted against the bill in the Judiciary Committee) to draft an omnibus conservative “poison pill” amendment to the bill that if passed would by all accounts unravel the whole bipartisan coalition supporting comprehensive immigration reform.Then, we take note of the long-expected collapse of immigration reform talks in the House:
Bipartisan meetings in the House of Representatives on a comprehensive immigration reform bill have failed, and the congressmen will meet for the last time today without reaching an agreement on a House bill, ABC News has learned.
The stumbling block is GOP insistence that newly legalized workers now working in the shadows have no access to government-sponsored health care during their 15-year pathway to citizenship, according to two sources with access to the secret house “Gang of 8″ meetings.And now we sit back, grab some salsa and chips, and watch the Rethuglican "Hispanic outreach" gambit crack open like a cheap pinata (sorry, we wanted to stay with the metaphor).
UPDATE: House Rethugs, led by nativist crackpot Rep. Steve King (Yahoo- IA), passed a bill Thursday to resume the deportation of young immigrants (a.k.a, DREAMers").
(Photo: "Agua! Agua!")
