sdrblr
06-11 05:42 PM
Can I apply for AP renewal now even if my current AP expires in mid Oct 2009 or should I wait until the expiration date is 90 or 120 days (like H1 renewal).
My EAD expired last year and I have not renewed it, so I should be good on that (I am working on H1) but had a question on AP.
Thanks in advance
My EAD expired last year and I have not renewed it, so I should be good on that (I am working on H1) but had a question on AP.
Thanks in advance
wallpaper Kristen Stewart and Robert
vallabhu
01-02 10:04 AM
might be FP or change of address if you have moved after applying 485.
I have same status for past 5 months.
I have same status for past 5 months.
anantc
09-23 03:19 PM
I-131 Application for Travel Document from $305 to $360
I-907 Request for Premium Processing Service from $1,000 to $1,225
I-765 Application for Employment Authorization from $340 to $380
I-140 Immigrant Petition for Alien Worker from $475 to $580
I-485 Application to Register Permanent Residence or Adjust Status from $930 to $985
USCIS - Fact Sheet: After Public Comment, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Announces Final Rule Adjusting Fees for Immigration Benefits (http://www.uscis.gov/portal/site/uscis/menuitem.5af9bb95919f35e66f614176543f6d1a/?vgnextoid=5be73dc5cb93b210VgnVCM100000082ca60aRCR D&vgnextchannel=68439c7755cb9010VgnVCM10000045f3d6a1 RCRD)
..:mad: Paisa feko..tamasha ka WAIT karo !!
I-907 Request for Premium Processing Service from $1,000 to $1,225
I-765 Application for Employment Authorization from $340 to $380
I-140 Immigrant Petition for Alien Worker from $475 to $580
I-485 Application to Register Permanent Residence or Adjust Status from $930 to $985
USCIS - Fact Sheet: After Public Comment, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Announces Final Rule Adjusting Fees for Immigration Benefits (http://www.uscis.gov/portal/site/uscis/menuitem.5af9bb95919f35e66f614176543f6d1a/?vgnextoid=5be73dc5cb93b210VgnVCM100000082ca60aRCR D&vgnextchannel=68439c7755cb9010VgnVCM10000045f3d6a1 RCRD)
..:mad: Paisa feko..tamasha ka WAIT karo !!
2011 Robert Pattinson And Kristen
kkartikeya
06-21 03:43 PM
Hi,
I have an EB2 I-140 approved with priority date of July 2006, but also recently got EB3 I-140 approved with priority date of May 2003.
Even though the dates are current, but it may retrograte in coming months, so Can I file I-485 using my approved EB2 with the priority date of EB3.
Please advice.
Thanks
KK
I have an EB2 I-140 approved with priority date of July 2006, but also recently got EB3 I-140 approved with priority date of May 2003.
Even though the dates are current, but it may retrograte in coming months, so Can I file I-485 using my approved EB2 with the priority date of EB3.
Please advice.
Thanks
KK
more...
VMH_GC
07-18 11:02 AM
In my company along with me 4 other folks also affected due to visa bulletin mess. I sent them an email on July 9th 2007 about flower campaign organized by IV to USCIS director. The sad part is no body showed any interest and did not bother to reply. They are also going to benefited by this decision. These people still beleive in Murthy and other lawyer firm updates. I really don't know how to make these folks interested in IV. Any ideas or other personal stories.
sunnysunny
10-01 01:24 PM
Gurus,
I really need advise. I am with Company A on H1, they filed my H1 extension 2 months ago (did not get approval yet) and they filed my I-140/485/EAD/AP(180 will be finishing after 90 days) and now I got following RFE on I-140. My lawyer has not replied yet.
Meanwhile the client where I am working has offered me full time position. Can I join this client on H1 and ask my current employer to continue my GC process and send AC21 on H1 after 180 days?
"The Master of Science Degree does not appear to be equivalent to U.S. Master Degree. Do NOT send an additional "education evaluations" that are mere advisory opinion. Submit preponderance of evidence that the beneficiary's bachelor and the master degree is U.S. equivalent based on educational records only"
Thanks
Sunny
I really need advise. I am with Company A on H1, they filed my H1 extension 2 months ago (did not get approval yet) and they filed my I-140/485/EAD/AP(180 will be finishing after 90 days) and now I got following RFE on I-140. My lawyer has not replied yet.
Meanwhile the client where I am working has offered me full time position. Can I join this client on H1 and ask my current employer to continue my GC process and send AC21 on H1 after 180 days?
"The Master of Science Degree does not appear to be equivalent to U.S. Master Degree. Do NOT send an additional "education evaluations" that are mere advisory opinion. Submit preponderance of evidence that the beneficiary's bachelor and the master degree is U.S. equivalent based on educational records only"
Thanks
Sunny
more...
coldcloud
07-21 10:46 PM
This might be little bit old, but I dont remember seeing a post on this. Employment-based immigrant visa fees almost doubled, Old fees $ 355, new fees $ 720 from July 13th. Does this mean USCIS will open the gates in Sept bulletin [to be released in August]?
New Consular Fees (http://travel.state.gov/news/news_5078.html)
New Consular Fees (http://travel.state.gov/news/news_5078.html)
2010 pictures Kissing scenes and
lobstars
05-04 02:57 PM
is this what you meant? it might be helpful anyway:)
board.flashkit.com/board/...did=274366 (http://board.flashkit.com/board/showthread.php?threadid=274366)
board.flashkit.com/board/...did=274366 (http://board.flashkit.com/board/showthread.php?threadid=274366)
more...
jacomonguy
03-16 05:49 AM
HI, i filed for my sons GC with an i-130. i received an I-797C saying it had been approved n a priority date of 02/26/2004. we have been waiting for years now i just checked the priority date and its already past that if im reading correctly its now at july 04...i am a US resident. i called the NVC but the automated service told me they are still processing visas from 1999?? What should i do?? can anyone give me decent advice on this? Thank you...
hair girlfriend Best Kiss: Robert
stormrider0610
February 3rd, 2009, 02:05 AM
Hi all, anyone have this lens with the Sony mount? Did you have any back focus issues with this lens? Thanks.
more...
marco
10-09 10:53 AM
There is no relation between your first FP and FIrst EAD.
Your EAD card will come the message ' FP not available."
Sequence is fine...you should get your card in mail anytime now.
HTH
-Marco
Your EAD card will come the message ' FP not available."
Sequence is fine...you should get your card in mail anytime now.
HTH
-Marco
hot New HOT photos from the
Macaca
05-05 07:15 AM
Democrats' Momentum Is Stalling (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/04/AR2007050402262.html) Amid Iraq Debate, Priorities On Domestic Agenda Languish By Jonathan Weisman and Lyndsey Layton (http://projects.washingtonpost.com/staff/email/jonathan+weisman+and+lyndsey+layton/) Washington Post Staff Writers, Saturday, May 5, 2007
In the heady opening weeks of the 110th Congress, the Democrats' domestic agenda appeared to be flying through the Capitol: Homeland security upgrades, a higher minimum wage and student loan interest rate cuts all passed with overwhelming bipartisan support.
But now that initial progress has foundered as Washington policymakers have been consumed with the debate over the Iraq war. Not a single priority on the Democrats' agenda has been enacted, and some in the party are growing nervous that the "do nothing" tag they slapped on Republicans last year could come back to haunt them.
"We cannot be a one-trick pony," said House Democratic Caucus Chairman Rahm Emanuel (Ill.), who helped engineer his party's takeover of Congress as head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. "People voted for change, but Iraq, the economy and Washington, D.C., [corruption] all tied for first place. We need to do them all."
The "Six for '06" policy agenda on which Democrats campaigned last year was supposed to consist of low-hanging fruit, plucked and put in the basket to allow Congress to move on to tougher targets. House Democrats took just 10 days to pass a minimum-wage increase, a bill to implement most of the homeland security recommendations of the Sept. 11 commission, a measure allowing federal funding for stem cell research, another to cut student-loan rates, a bill allowing the federal government to negotiate drug prices under Medicare, and a rollback of tax breaks for oil and gas companies to finance alternative-energy research.
The Senate struck out on its own, with a broad overhaul of the rules on lobbying Congress.
Not one of those bills has been signed into law. President Bush signed 16 measures into law through April, six more than were signed by this time in the previous Congress. But beyond a huge domestic spending bill that wrapped up work left undone by Republicans last year, the list of achievements is modest: a beefed-up board to oversee congressional pages in the wake of the Mark Foley scandal, and the renaming of six post offices, including one for Gerald R. Ford in Vail, Colo., as well as two courthouses, including one for Rush Limbaugh Sr. in Cape Girardeau, Mo.
The minimum-wage bill got stalled in a fight with the Senate over tax breaks to go along with the wage increase. In frustration, Democratic leaders inserted a minimum-wage agreement into a bill to fund the Iraq war, only to see it vetoed.
Similar homeland security bills were passed by the House and the Senate, only to languish as attention shifted to the Iraq debate. Last week, family members of those killed on Sept. 11, 2001, gathered in Washington to demand action.
"We've waited five and a half years since 9/11," said Carie Lemack, whose mother died aboard one of the planes that crashed into the World Trade Center in New York. "We waited three years since the 9/11 commission. We can't wait anymore."
House and Senate staff members have begun meeting, with the goal of reporting out a final bill by Memorial Day, but they concede that the deadline is likely to slip, in part because members of the homeland security committees of both chambers, the House Energy and Commerce Committee and the two intelligence committees all want their say. The irony, Lemack said, is that such cumbersomeness is precisely why the Sept. 11 commission recommended the creation of powerful umbrella security committees with such broad jurisdiction that other panels could not muscle their way in. That was one recommendation Congress largely disregarded.
The Medicare drug-negotiations bill died in the Senate, after Republicans refused to let it come up for debate. House Democrats are threatening to attach the bill to must-pass government funding bills.
Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), chairman of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, has proposed his own student-loan legislation, but it is to be part of a huge higher-education bill that may not reach the committee until June.
The House's relatively simple energy bill faces a similar fate. The Senate has in mind a much larger bill that would ease bringing alternative fuels to market, regulate oil and gas futures trading, raise vehicle and appliance efficiency standards, and reform federal royalty payments to finance new energy technologies.
The voters seem to have noticed the stall. An ABC News-Washington Post poll last month found that 73 percent of Americans believe Congress has done "not too much" or "nothing at all." A memo from the Democratic polling firm Democracy Corps warned last month that the stalemate between Congress and Bush over the war spending bill has knocked down the favorable ratings of Congress and the Democrats by three percentage points and has taken a greater toll on the public's hope for a productive Congress.
"The primary message coming out of the November election was that the American people are sick and tired of the fighting and the gridlock, and they want both the president and Congress to start governing the country," warned Leon E. Panetta, a chief of staff in Bill Clinton's White House. "It just seems to me the Democrats, if they fail for whatever reason to get a domestic agenda enacted . . . will pay a price."
Republicans are already trying to extract that price. Sen. Jon Kyl (Ariz.), chairman of the Senate Republican Conference, said Democrats are just "trying to score political points on the war. . . . Part of their party can't conceive of anything else to talk about but the war."
Norman J. Ornstein, a Congress watcher at the American Enterprise Institute, said a Congress's productivity is not measured solely on the number of bills signed into law. Bills and resolutions approved by either chamber totaled 165 during the first four months of this Congress, compared with 72 in 2005. And Congress recorded 415 roll-call votes, compared with 264 when Republicans were in charge and the House GOP leaders struggled to impose their agenda on a closely divided Senate.
Democratic leaders remain hopeful that a burst of activity will put the doubts about them to rest. They have promised to pass a war funding bill and a minimum-wage increase that Bush can sign, to complete a budget blueprint and to finish the homeland security bill by Memorial Day. The House wants to pass defense and intelligence bills, its own lobbying measure and the first gun-control legislation since 1994, which would tighten the national instant-check system for gun purchases. The Senate hopes to complete a comprehensive overhaul of immigration laws.
Rep. Chris Van Hollen (Md.), chairman of the House Democratic campaign committee, said his party needs to get some achievements under its belt, but not until voters begin to focus on the campaigns next year. "People understand the Democrats in Congress are doing everything in their power to move an agenda forward, doing everything possible to change direction in the war in Iraq, and the president is standing in the way," he said.
Kyl was not so sanguine. If accomplishments are not in the books by this fall, he said, the Democrats will find their achievements eclipsed by the 2008 presidential race. Panetta agreed.
"This leadership, these Democrats have shown that they can fight," he said. "Now they have to show they can govern."
In the heady opening weeks of the 110th Congress, the Democrats' domestic agenda appeared to be flying through the Capitol: Homeland security upgrades, a higher minimum wage and student loan interest rate cuts all passed with overwhelming bipartisan support.
But now that initial progress has foundered as Washington policymakers have been consumed with the debate over the Iraq war. Not a single priority on the Democrats' agenda has been enacted, and some in the party are growing nervous that the "do nothing" tag they slapped on Republicans last year could come back to haunt them.
"We cannot be a one-trick pony," said House Democratic Caucus Chairman Rahm Emanuel (Ill.), who helped engineer his party's takeover of Congress as head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. "People voted for change, but Iraq, the economy and Washington, D.C., [corruption] all tied for first place. We need to do them all."
The "Six for '06" policy agenda on which Democrats campaigned last year was supposed to consist of low-hanging fruit, plucked and put in the basket to allow Congress to move on to tougher targets. House Democrats took just 10 days to pass a minimum-wage increase, a bill to implement most of the homeland security recommendations of the Sept. 11 commission, a measure allowing federal funding for stem cell research, another to cut student-loan rates, a bill allowing the federal government to negotiate drug prices under Medicare, and a rollback of tax breaks for oil and gas companies to finance alternative-energy research.
The Senate struck out on its own, with a broad overhaul of the rules on lobbying Congress.
Not one of those bills has been signed into law. President Bush signed 16 measures into law through April, six more than were signed by this time in the previous Congress. But beyond a huge domestic spending bill that wrapped up work left undone by Republicans last year, the list of achievements is modest: a beefed-up board to oversee congressional pages in the wake of the Mark Foley scandal, and the renaming of six post offices, including one for Gerald R. Ford in Vail, Colo., as well as two courthouses, including one for Rush Limbaugh Sr. in Cape Girardeau, Mo.
The minimum-wage bill got stalled in a fight with the Senate over tax breaks to go along with the wage increase. In frustration, Democratic leaders inserted a minimum-wage agreement into a bill to fund the Iraq war, only to see it vetoed.
Similar homeland security bills were passed by the House and the Senate, only to languish as attention shifted to the Iraq debate. Last week, family members of those killed on Sept. 11, 2001, gathered in Washington to demand action.
"We've waited five and a half years since 9/11," said Carie Lemack, whose mother died aboard one of the planes that crashed into the World Trade Center in New York. "We waited three years since the 9/11 commission. We can't wait anymore."
House and Senate staff members have begun meeting, with the goal of reporting out a final bill by Memorial Day, but they concede that the deadline is likely to slip, in part because members of the homeland security committees of both chambers, the House Energy and Commerce Committee and the two intelligence committees all want their say. The irony, Lemack said, is that such cumbersomeness is precisely why the Sept. 11 commission recommended the creation of powerful umbrella security committees with such broad jurisdiction that other panels could not muscle their way in. That was one recommendation Congress largely disregarded.
The Medicare drug-negotiations bill died in the Senate, after Republicans refused to let it come up for debate. House Democrats are threatening to attach the bill to must-pass government funding bills.
Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), chairman of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, has proposed his own student-loan legislation, but it is to be part of a huge higher-education bill that may not reach the committee until June.
The House's relatively simple energy bill faces a similar fate. The Senate has in mind a much larger bill that would ease bringing alternative fuels to market, regulate oil and gas futures trading, raise vehicle and appliance efficiency standards, and reform federal royalty payments to finance new energy technologies.
The voters seem to have noticed the stall. An ABC News-Washington Post poll last month found that 73 percent of Americans believe Congress has done "not too much" or "nothing at all." A memo from the Democratic polling firm Democracy Corps warned last month that the stalemate between Congress and Bush over the war spending bill has knocked down the favorable ratings of Congress and the Democrats by three percentage points and has taken a greater toll on the public's hope for a productive Congress.
"The primary message coming out of the November election was that the American people are sick and tired of the fighting and the gridlock, and they want both the president and Congress to start governing the country," warned Leon E. Panetta, a chief of staff in Bill Clinton's White House. "It just seems to me the Democrats, if they fail for whatever reason to get a domestic agenda enacted . . . will pay a price."
Republicans are already trying to extract that price. Sen. Jon Kyl (Ariz.), chairman of the Senate Republican Conference, said Democrats are just "trying to score political points on the war. . . . Part of their party can't conceive of anything else to talk about but the war."
Norman J. Ornstein, a Congress watcher at the American Enterprise Institute, said a Congress's productivity is not measured solely on the number of bills signed into law. Bills and resolutions approved by either chamber totaled 165 during the first four months of this Congress, compared with 72 in 2005. And Congress recorded 415 roll-call votes, compared with 264 when Republicans were in charge and the House GOP leaders struggled to impose their agenda on a closely divided Senate.
Democratic leaders remain hopeful that a burst of activity will put the doubts about them to rest. They have promised to pass a war funding bill and a minimum-wage increase that Bush can sign, to complete a budget blueprint and to finish the homeland security bill by Memorial Day. The House wants to pass defense and intelligence bills, its own lobbying measure and the first gun-control legislation since 1994, which would tighten the national instant-check system for gun purchases. The Senate hopes to complete a comprehensive overhaul of immigration laws.
Rep. Chris Van Hollen (Md.), chairman of the House Democratic campaign committee, said his party needs to get some achievements under its belt, but not until voters begin to focus on the campaigns next year. "People understand the Democrats in Congress are doing everything in their power to move an agenda forward, doing everything possible to change direction in the war in Iraq, and the president is standing in the way," he said.
Kyl was not so sanguine. If accomplishments are not in the books by this fall, he said, the Democrats will find their achievements eclipsed by the 2008 presidential race. Panetta agreed.
"This leadership, these Democrats have shown that they can fight," he said. "Now they have to show they can govern."
more...
house Kissing Scene Robert Pattinson
anilsal
12-26 11:00 PM
http://immigrationvoice.org/forum/showthread.php?t=2708
Anti-immigrants are not welcome.
Anti-immigrants are not welcome.
tattoo kristen stewart hot photos.
Blog Feeds
04-12 08:20 AM
Thanks to Richard Reid, we all have the extra task of removing our shoes when we go through security at airports. The "shoe bomber" from England tried to set off a bomb hidden in his shoes ten years ago, but thanks in part to Canadian born, Trinidad raised Kwame James, Reid was unable to carry out his plan. James, at 6 foot 8 inches, was then a 22 year old basketball player. An astute flight attendant woke James up and got him to help subdue Reid. Both Reid and James were in the news this week, though for very different...
More... (http://blogs.ilw.com/gregsiskind/2010/04/immigrant-of-the-day-kwame-james-terrorist-fighter.html)
More... (http://blogs.ilw.com/gregsiskind/2010/04/immigrant-of-the-day-kwame-james-terrorist-fighter.html)
more...
pictures Kristen Stewart and Robert
invincibleasian
02-05 11:38 AM
Hi,
I have a problem. My Employer want to know how long it`s take to become the EB3 Visa, I meen after PERM, I-140. I`m from Germany. I have read that it`s take 4 years till a visa will be available. It`s really so?
Lelica
Please check the latest Us Visa Bulletin.
I have a problem. My Employer want to know how long it`s take to become the EB3 Visa, I meen after PERM, I-140. I`m from Germany. I have read that it`s take 4 years till a visa will be available. It`s really so?
Lelica
Please check the latest Us Visa Bulletin.
dresses but their kissing scene
ivgclive
09-21 12:17 PM
D
more...
makeup Sealed with a kiss: Stewart
Macaca
11-11 08:15 AM
Extreme Politics (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/11/books/review/Brinkley-t.html) By ALAN BRINKLEY | New York Times, November 11, 2007
Alan Brinkley is the Allan Nevins professor of history and the provost at Columbia University.
Few people would dispute that the politics of Washington are as polarized today as they have been in decades. The question Ronald Brownstein poses in this provocative book is whether what he calls “extreme partisanship” is simply a result of the tactics of recent party leaders, or whether it is an enduring product of a systemic change in the structure and behavior of the political world. Brownstein, formerly the chief political correspondent for The Los Angeles Times and now the political director of the Atlantic Media Company, gives considerable credence to both explanations. But the most important part of “The Second Civil War” — and the most debatable — is his claim that the current political climate is the logical, perhaps even inevitable, result of a structural change that stretched over a generation.
A half-century ago, Brownstein says, the two parties looked very different from how they appear today. The Democratic Party was a motley combination of the conservative white South; workers in the industrial North as well as African-Americans and other minorities; and cosmopolitan liberals in the major cities of the East and West Coasts. Republicans dominated the suburbs, the business world, the farm belt and traditional elites. But the constituencies of both parties were sufficiently diverse, both demographically and ideologically, to mute the differences between them. There were enough liberals in the Republican Party, and enough conservatives among the Democrats, to require continual negotiation and compromise and to permit either party to help shape policy and to be competitive in most elections. Brownstein calls this “the Age of Bargaining,” and while he concedes that this era helped prevent bold decisions (like confronting racial discrimination), he clearly prefers it to the fractious world that followed.
The turbulent politics of the 1960s and ’70s introduced newly ideological perspectives to the two major parties and inaugurated what Brownstein calls “the great sorting out” — a movement of politicians and voters into two ideological camps, one dominated by an intensified conservatism and the other by an aggressive liberalism. By the end of the 1970s, he argues, the Republican Party was no longer a broad coalition but a party dominated by its most conservative voices; the Democratic Party had become a more consistently liberal force, and had similarly banished many of its dissenting voices. Some scholars and critics of American politics in the 1950s had called for exactly such a change, insisting that clear ideological differences would give voters a real choice and thus a greater role in the democratic process. But to Brownstein, the “sorting out” was a catastrophe that led directly to the meanspirited, take-no-prisoners partisanship of today.
There is considerable truth in this story. But the transformation of American politics that he describes was the product of more extensive forces than he allows and has been, at least so far, less profound than he claims. Brownstein correctly cites the Democrats’ embrace of the civil rights movement as a catalyst for partisan change — moving the white South solidly into the Republican Party and shifting it farther to the right, while pushing the Democrats farther to the left. But he offers few other explanations for “the great sorting out” beyond the preferences and behavior of party leaders. A more persuasive explanation would have to include other large social changes: the enormous shift of population into the Sun Belt over the last several decades; the new immigration and the dramatic increase it created in ethnic minorities within the electorate; the escalation of economic inequality, beginning in the 1970s, which raised the expectations of the wealthy and the anxiety of lower-middle-class and working-class people (an anxiety conservatives used to gain support for lowering taxes and attacking government); the end of the cold war and the emergence of a much less stable international system; and perhaps most of all, the movement of much of the political center out of the party system altogether and into the largest single category of voters — independents. Voters may not have changed their ideology very much. Most evidence suggests that a majority of Americans remain relatively moderate and pragmatic. But many have lost interest, and confidence, in the political system and the government, leaving the most fervent party loyalists with greatly increased influence on the choice of candidates and policies.
Brownstein skillfully and convincingly recounts the process by which the conservative movement gained control of the Republican Party and its Congressional delegation. He is especially deft at identifying the institutional and procedural tools that the most conservative wing of the party used after 2000 both to vanquish Republican moderates and to limit the ability of the Democratic minority to participate meaningfully in the legislative process. He is less successful (and somewhat halfhearted) in making the case for a comparable ideological homogeneity among the Democrats, as becomes clear in the book’s opening passage. Brownstein appropriately cites the former House Republican leader Tom DeLay’s farewell speech in 2006 as a sign of his party’s recent strategy. DeLay ridiculed those who complained about “bitter, divisive partisan rancor.” Partisanship, he stated, “is not a symptom of democracy’s weakness but of its health and its strength.”
But making the same argument about a similar dogmatism and zealotry among Democrats is a considerable stretch. To make this case, Brownstein cites not an elected official (let alone a Congressional leader), but the readers of the Daily Kos, a popular left-wing/libertarian Web site that promotes what Brownstein calls “a scorched-earth opposition to the G.O.P.” According to him, “DeLay and the Democratic Internet activists ... each sought to reconfigure their political party to the same specifications — as a warrior party that would commit to opposing the other side with every conceivable means at its disposal.” The Kos is a significant force, and some leading Democrats have attended its yearly conventions. But few party leaders share the most extreme views of Kos supporters, and even fewer embrace their “passionate partisanship.” Many Democrats might wish that their party leaders would emulate the aggressively partisan style of the Republican right. But it would be hard to argue that they have come even remotely close to the ideological purity of their conservative counterparts. More often, they have seemed cowed and timorous in the face of Republican discipline, and have over time themselves moved increasingly rightward; their recapture of Congress has so far appeared to have emboldened them only modestly.
There is no definitive answer to the question of whether the current level of polarization is the inevitable result of long-term systemic changes, or whether it is a transitory product of a particular political moment. But much of this so-called age of extreme partisanship has looked very much like Brownstein’s “Age of Bargaining.” Ronald Reagan, the great hero of the right and a much more effective spokesman for its views than President Bush, certainly oversaw a significant shift in the ideology and policy of the Republican Party. But through much of his presidency, both he and the Congressional Republicans displayed considerable pragmatism, engaged in negotiation with their opponents and accepted many compromises. Bill Clinton, bedeviled though he was by partisan fury, was a master of compromise and negotiation — and of co-opting and transforming the views of his adversaries. Only under George W. Bush — through a combination of his control of both houses of Congress, his own inflexibility and the post-9/11 climate — did extreme partisanship manage to dominate the agenda. Given the apparent failure of this project, it seems unlikely that a new president, whether Democrat or Republican, will be able to recreate the dispiriting political world of the last seven years.
Division of the U.S. Didn’t Occur Overnight (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/13/books/13kaku.html) By MICHIKO KAKUTANI | New York Times, November 13, 2007
THE SECOND CIVIL WAR How Extreme Partisanship Has Paralyzed Washington and Polarized America By Ronald Brownstein, The Penguin Press. $27.95
Alan Brinkley is the Allan Nevins professor of history and the provost at Columbia University.
Few people would dispute that the politics of Washington are as polarized today as they have been in decades. The question Ronald Brownstein poses in this provocative book is whether what he calls “extreme partisanship” is simply a result of the tactics of recent party leaders, or whether it is an enduring product of a systemic change in the structure and behavior of the political world. Brownstein, formerly the chief political correspondent for The Los Angeles Times and now the political director of the Atlantic Media Company, gives considerable credence to both explanations. But the most important part of “The Second Civil War” — and the most debatable — is his claim that the current political climate is the logical, perhaps even inevitable, result of a structural change that stretched over a generation.
A half-century ago, Brownstein says, the two parties looked very different from how they appear today. The Democratic Party was a motley combination of the conservative white South; workers in the industrial North as well as African-Americans and other minorities; and cosmopolitan liberals in the major cities of the East and West Coasts. Republicans dominated the suburbs, the business world, the farm belt and traditional elites. But the constituencies of both parties were sufficiently diverse, both demographically and ideologically, to mute the differences between them. There were enough liberals in the Republican Party, and enough conservatives among the Democrats, to require continual negotiation and compromise and to permit either party to help shape policy and to be competitive in most elections. Brownstein calls this “the Age of Bargaining,” and while he concedes that this era helped prevent bold decisions (like confronting racial discrimination), he clearly prefers it to the fractious world that followed.
The turbulent politics of the 1960s and ’70s introduced newly ideological perspectives to the two major parties and inaugurated what Brownstein calls “the great sorting out” — a movement of politicians and voters into two ideological camps, one dominated by an intensified conservatism and the other by an aggressive liberalism. By the end of the 1970s, he argues, the Republican Party was no longer a broad coalition but a party dominated by its most conservative voices; the Democratic Party had become a more consistently liberal force, and had similarly banished many of its dissenting voices. Some scholars and critics of American politics in the 1950s had called for exactly such a change, insisting that clear ideological differences would give voters a real choice and thus a greater role in the democratic process. But to Brownstein, the “sorting out” was a catastrophe that led directly to the meanspirited, take-no-prisoners partisanship of today.
There is considerable truth in this story. But the transformation of American politics that he describes was the product of more extensive forces than he allows and has been, at least so far, less profound than he claims. Brownstein correctly cites the Democrats’ embrace of the civil rights movement as a catalyst for partisan change — moving the white South solidly into the Republican Party and shifting it farther to the right, while pushing the Democrats farther to the left. But he offers few other explanations for “the great sorting out” beyond the preferences and behavior of party leaders. A more persuasive explanation would have to include other large social changes: the enormous shift of population into the Sun Belt over the last several decades; the new immigration and the dramatic increase it created in ethnic minorities within the electorate; the escalation of economic inequality, beginning in the 1970s, which raised the expectations of the wealthy and the anxiety of lower-middle-class and working-class people (an anxiety conservatives used to gain support for lowering taxes and attacking government); the end of the cold war and the emergence of a much less stable international system; and perhaps most of all, the movement of much of the political center out of the party system altogether and into the largest single category of voters — independents. Voters may not have changed their ideology very much. Most evidence suggests that a majority of Americans remain relatively moderate and pragmatic. But many have lost interest, and confidence, in the political system and the government, leaving the most fervent party loyalists with greatly increased influence on the choice of candidates and policies.
Brownstein skillfully and convincingly recounts the process by which the conservative movement gained control of the Republican Party and its Congressional delegation. He is especially deft at identifying the institutional and procedural tools that the most conservative wing of the party used after 2000 both to vanquish Republican moderates and to limit the ability of the Democratic minority to participate meaningfully in the legislative process. He is less successful (and somewhat halfhearted) in making the case for a comparable ideological homogeneity among the Democrats, as becomes clear in the book’s opening passage. Brownstein appropriately cites the former House Republican leader Tom DeLay’s farewell speech in 2006 as a sign of his party’s recent strategy. DeLay ridiculed those who complained about “bitter, divisive partisan rancor.” Partisanship, he stated, “is not a symptom of democracy’s weakness but of its health and its strength.”
But making the same argument about a similar dogmatism and zealotry among Democrats is a considerable stretch. To make this case, Brownstein cites not an elected official (let alone a Congressional leader), but the readers of the Daily Kos, a popular left-wing/libertarian Web site that promotes what Brownstein calls “a scorched-earth opposition to the G.O.P.” According to him, “DeLay and the Democratic Internet activists ... each sought to reconfigure their political party to the same specifications — as a warrior party that would commit to opposing the other side with every conceivable means at its disposal.” The Kos is a significant force, and some leading Democrats have attended its yearly conventions. But few party leaders share the most extreme views of Kos supporters, and even fewer embrace their “passionate partisanship.” Many Democrats might wish that their party leaders would emulate the aggressively partisan style of the Republican right. But it would be hard to argue that they have come even remotely close to the ideological purity of their conservative counterparts. More often, they have seemed cowed and timorous in the face of Republican discipline, and have over time themselves moved increasingly rightward; their recapture of Congress has so far appeared to have emboldened them only modestly.
There is no definitive answer to the question of whether the current level of polarization is the inevitable result of long-term systemic changes, or whether it is a transitory product of a particular political moment. But much of this so-called age of extreme partisanship has looked very much like Brownstein’s “Age of Bargaining.” Ronald Reagan, the great hero of the right and a much more effective spokesman for its views than President Bush, certainly oversaw a significant shift in the ideology and policy of the Republican Party. But through much of his presidency, both he and the Congressional Republicans displayed considerable pragmatism, engaged in negotiation with their opponents and accepted many compromises. Bill Clinton, bedeviled though he was by partisan fury, was a master of compromise and negotiation — and of co-opting and transforming the views of his adversaries. Only under George W. Bush — through a combination of his control of both houses of Congress, his own inflexibility and the post-9/11 climate — did extreme partisanship manage to dominate the agenda. Given the apparent failure of this project, it seems unlikely that a new president, whether Democrat or Republican, will be able to recreate the dispiriting political world of the last seven years.
Division of the U.S. Didn’t Occur Overnight (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/13/books/13kaku.html) By MICHIKO KAKUTANI | New York Times, November 13, 2007
THE SECOND CIVIL WAR How Extreme Partisanship Has Paralyzed Washington and Polarized America By Ronald Brownstein, The Penguin Press. $27.95
girlfriend Kristen Stewart apparently
Anil777
04-14 11:09 PM
Hello Everyone,
My wife is trying to process visitor Visa for her parents and she has a problem with her mothers name in the Passport as it reads just the short name instead of her Full name.
I'm wondering if the Affidavit would be sufficient while going for Visa or would this still be a problem?
If affidavit is sufficient, can someone please kindly share the sample affidavit if you have one?
Appreciate your immediate response...!
Thanks
Anil
My wife is trying to process visitor Visa for her parents and she has a problem with her mothers name in the Passport as it reads just the short name instead of her Full name.
I'm wondering if the Affidavit would be sufficient while going for Visa or would this still be a problem?
If affidavit is sufficient, can someone please kindly share the sample affidavit if you have one?
Appreciate your immediate response...!
Thanks
Anil
hairstyles 2010 Kristen Stewart and Robert kristen stewart hot scene pics. kristen
iheartindia79
12-20 04:34 PM
Applying for SSN doesn't invalidates your H1..
I received my EAD recently and shortly applied and got SSN. Its a card which allows you to work. Doesnt cancel nothing :D
I received my EAD recently and shortly applied and got SSN. Its a card which allows you to work. Doesnt cancel nothing :D
ItIsNotFunny
03-22 09:36 AM
Got an offer this year from a New Jersey based company called PR Consultants. Does anyone has any information about this company? Any help can be really useful ..
Are you looking for job?
Are you looking for job?
ewiebe
04-08 04:35 AM
Hallo all,
is it possible to create an application in Blend/Silverlight which looks like shown in :
http://www.mentor.com/products/embedded_software/multimedia/overview/inflexion-ui-designer-77552d73-7c31-4584-ba34-2fb8564d5668
Does anybody have an example for it?
is it possible to create an application in Blend/Silverlight which looks like shown in :
http://www.mentor.com/products/embedded_software/multimedia/overview/inflexion-ui-designer-77552d73-7c31-4584-ba34-2fb8564d5668
Does anybody have an example for it?
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