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Superbone wrote: ↑

Sat Jan 27, 2024 12:41 pm

Which makes it all about them rather than the American people.

Nodack wrote: ↑

Sat Jan 27, 2024 10:04 am

It seems to me that blowing up the immigration deal just to say on the campaign trail that Biden didn’t do anything is easily countered with “We tried to do something but Trump and the GOP killed the deal just to make Biden look bad and obviously aren’t serious about fixing the border.”

Reminds me of when Nixon killed the Vietnam peace talks to help his chances of being elected. US soldiers paid the price.

Mori Chu wrote: ↑

Sat Jan 27, 2024 7:25 pm

I once heard a rule of thumb in politics: "If you're explaining, you're losing." It's an oversimplification, but I think it often helps me understand situations like these. Yes, the Dems have a pretty good explanation here: "We want to improve things with immigration / the border, but the bipartisan deal we've created is being blocked, etc." But a lot of voters won't buy it, or will see it as just some excuse for failure. The way a lot of people will think of it is, Biden's the President and immigration is messed up. Therefore, Biden isn't doing enough to fix immigration. Simple as that.

Instead of obeying the courts, Greg Abbott declared an “invasion” at the southern border, asserting Texas has a constitutional authority to protect itself. He invoked Article 4, Section 4 of the Constitution, which requires the United States to “protect [the states] against invasion.” Since Texas is being invaded and the administration won’t stop it, Abbott argued that Article 1, Section 10 of the Constitution “reserves to this State the right of self-defense.”

Except that’s not what the Constitution says. Article 1, Section 10 doesn’t mention “self-defense” at all. Instead, it says that no state shall, without the consent of Congress, engage in war “unless actually invaded.”

Additionally, as Mark Joseph Stern pointed out over at Slate, language Abbott used in his statement — that the federal government had “broken the compact” between the United States and Texas — is very similar to the language used by Southern states in their declarations of secession in 1860 and 1861.

Make no mistake, this is a genuine constitutional crisis on two fronts. Abbott is refusing to acknowledge the Supreme Court’s ruling, thereby undermining the judicial branch. He’s also refusing to recognize the executive branch's authority by saying that Texas, not the federal government, controls a federal border.