Moral stakes are high for comprehensive immigration reform

Moral stakes are high for comprehensive immigration reform 

Politics is about what is possible, not what is moral. Full Stop. Ending the requirement for current legal residency while giving people the status that they would otherwise have without it is an easier pill to swallow than pure amnesty. Fees are better than penalties and should cover the actual cost of processing. Using state and local boards of elections (who need to support a larger professional staff at election time) to process applications (with federal appeals) removes the backlog problem.

The main benefit of inequality is a compliant workforce for the worst work. The answer to that is a federal prohibition of right to work laws. Getting behind that helps create a coalition for passing the bill, putting the White working class behind it. This is the best way to decrease the demand for migrant labor. The other need is federal enforcement of wage and safety laws with punitive fines paying for these efforts. States simply cannot be trusted with this job.

The 2013 bill as a political stunt to make the Republicans look bad. It was never designed to pass. It was a bad bill that, absent its political stunt factor, could never be passed by Democrats. That is where morals come in. 

The Equality Act is payback to the Human Rights Campaign. It has no chance of passage and most people will not notice it. Most of it is already law under the Title VII cases. The question of how Hosanna-Tabor and the Title VII cases converge will come up soon. This will lead to legislation. The Court is probably where this will play out first. A cogent argument about the Church seeking religious power instead of religious freedom will bring forward a proper balance without depending on Congress.

Trump was morally repugnant. His people flooded party local positions. Now that Trump is gone, they will become lazy and drop out of the process. Sanders voters should take the lesson, leave Democratic Socialists of America and seek Democratic Party precinct, county, district and state positions. Trump's ownership of the GOP is a short term thing. 

COVID had nothing to do with the outcome of the election. People in COVID hot spots showed up to vote for Trump as people were dropping dead in his states. It had no impact on his favorability or his lingering popularity. Proof he is a conman might.

The Bishops Conference is irrelevant. It's Republican shills are retiring and dying off. Whether patients or confrontation on this is the better course can be debated. I favor confrontation because the views on abortion on both sides are flawed. Abortion in the first trimester is constitutionally impossible, no matter how may hearts and minds are changed and the seamless garment of life is a lame attempt to legitimate Democratic voting by those who do not need a reason to do so.

The Catholic Church's existential issues will not be solved by shows of unity twice a year at USCCB meetings. Until it abandons its toxic sexual teachings, its shelf life is not eternal. Jesus promised that the Church would be given the grace to change, not that it is always right. It is time to trust God and ordain women. Like immigration reform, this won't happen overnight, but it will happen.