Had to smile when I saw this a moment ago:
Powell: I stay Republican to ‘annoy’ GOP https://t.co/As3JRcJjB9 pic.twitter.com/H8k5hXULoi
— The Hill (@thehill) October 1, 2015
An excerpt from the story:
Former Secretary of State Colin Powell joked that he identifies as a Republican to annoy the GOP’s right-wing.
“Yes, I’m still a Republican,” he said about his party affiliation during the Washington Ideas Forum in Washington, D.C., according to the Daily Mail.
“I want to continue to be a Republican because it annoys them,” Powell quipped to host Walter Isaacson.
“I think the party has shifted much further right than where the country is and it should be obvious to party leaders that they cannot keep saying and doing the things that they were doing and hope to be successful in national-level election in the future, not just in 2016,” he added.
Powell said a small faction in the GOP is alienating voters with their rhetoric on immigration.
“I think most Republicans understand that we need immigration, we are an immigrant nation [and that] it is in our best interest to do it,” he said….
I think I’ll follow his lead and become a Republican. And a Democrat.
Oh, I know! I’ll become a Libertarian! That would drive them nuts…
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Sure we need immigration. I’m all for it. What we don’t need is illegal immigration nor any government assistance for anyone who chooses to enter or remain illegally.
Meanwhile, my work friends from India who are here legally have a DMV-like experience when attempting to renew their visas. Going on two months now since documents were submitted with no idea when they will be approved. The government bureaucracy monopoly guarantees poor performance.
Yeah, it’s just crazy to let the government be in charge of immigration! The private sector would do so much better! We should turn it over to, say, the chicken-processing industry — I’m sure they’d fairly balance all competing interests, don’t you think?
Huh? How about we turn it over to the credit card companies? They can process an application in seconds.
There is no incentive for the immigration service to be productive. None. You think they reward the processors based on how many they complete? Do you think they get rid of the processors who are the slowest?
My friends can’t even find out where their applications are in the process. There are two statuses: received and completed – with months of waiting in between. These are people working at the same job for the same company living at the same address that they’ve been at for the past year. How long should that take to process? Even the most typical dim witted government paper pusher should be able to do that in five minutes. Meanwhile, my friends cannot travel home to be with sick relatives, cannot get a U.S. drivers license, cannot buy a car. No, really, the government is doing a GREAT job!
It’s true that the H1B visa process is ridiculously convoluted, independent from whether the private sector could do it better. I’ve been through this with employees, too — similar situations to Doug’s I’d wager, and it’s horrible. In one case (among many), a friend of mine from India had to leave his job here in Columbia and take a job in New York, just because of weird rules that wouldn’t let him apply for his visa if he’d been in his current job a certain amount of time. (He moved to New York with his new bride, took a job at the World Trade Center, and died there on Sept 11 in the bombings).
It seems like everywhere one touches the American govt as regards people from other countries coming here, it is a mess. I have good friends that have run up against it with frustrating and sometimes tragic results.
It just doesn’t seem like it needs to be so difficult.
Thanks, Susan, for sharing your similar experience.
I liked Politico’s discussion of how Ted Cruz got boxed in by his colleagues. Mitch McConnell appears to be the grownup in charge. All this angry acting out, rather than governing.