By GottaLaff
Please indulge me. I'm a geek. I'm a Maddow fan girl. I admit it.
You can't imagine how proud ZenShadow and I are right now:
Our pals at the Political Carnival bring the awesome with this human response to Arizona's "Papers, please" bill.
By GottaLaff
This webisode of Blunt was a bigger collaborative effort than usual, and for that, ZenShadow and I thank you.
ZenShadow is the one who came up with the concept for this amazing collection of videos, and I edited them together, and then some.
We put the word out on Twitter, and before I knew it, I had 60-plus videos filling my inbox. My video program couldn't handle the load, so sadly, some had to be cut. I apologize deeply for that, because I know the feeling that went into them.
Thank you to every single contributor. You may recognize some faces, and other ones you'll wish you knew better. All are wonderful, caring people.
But the trick question is, which ones are "illegal"?
Blunt is a lot like letters to the editor. YOUR take, short, to the point.
You have a voice, now use it.
(Click on image to enlarge)By GottaLaff
What would Joe Lieberman say? Strip Peter King of his citizenship, now!
Via Wiki (H/t: Balloon Juice):
In the 1980s, King frequently traveled to Northern Ireland to meet with IRA members.[5] In 1982, speaking at a pro-IRA rally in Nassau County, New York, King said: “We must pledge ourselves to support those brave men and women who this very moment are carrying forth the struggle against British imperialism in the streets of Belfast and Derry.”[5][6] A Northern Irish judge ordered King ejected from the former's courtroom, describing him as “an obvious collaborator with the IRA”.[5] He became involved with NORAID, an organization that the British, Irish and US governments accuse of financing IRA activities and providing them with weapons.[5][7][8][9] He was banned from appearing on British TV for his pro IRA views and refusing to condemn IRA activity in the UK.[5]
In 2000, he called then-presidential candidate George W. Bush a tool of "anti-Catholic bigoted forces."[5]
He stopped supporting the IRA after being offended by Irish public opposition to the invasion of Iraq,[5] labelling it as begrudgery rather than suspicion of and opposition to the war.
In 2008, King spoke in defense of bail for a fugitive IRA member, Pól Brennan, who had escaped from prison in the UK and been detained in Texas 15 years later. The IRA member, who had broken out of prison during the Maze Prison escape and entered America illegally,[10] was being held without bail after his work permit expired; King said: "My experience dealing with (Irish) republicans is that they don't jump bail in this country. They honor their commitments."[11]
That’s a lot of documented associations with bad guys! I know he’s an American Congressmen, but still.
By GottaLaff
If you missed this last night, here's your chance to see a doozy. Keith expressed what so many of us wished we could have:
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
By GottaLaff
Your Daily Dose of BuzzFlash, brought to you by the one and only Mark Karlin:
The draconian Arizona Anti-Mexican Immigrant law -- this legislation is not aimed at white immigrants -- would not have passed and been signed under Bush; Karl Rove would have made sure of that.
[...] Bush and Cheney were basically heirs to the slavery tradition of low wage labor and believed that corporate America should have access to the cheapest possible labor market -- legal or otherwise.
[...] Without a Republican in the White House to protect the right of corporations to exploit illegal labor, the Republican Governor of Arizona signed the law [...] and became a right wing populist hero even if it will probably cause her state hundreds of millions of dollars in boycott revenue and litigation costs.
The Republicans still have a split in their party between the corporatists who are happy to employ illegal immigrants at sub-living wages and the white Tea Party populist base that is upset that whites are becoming a minority [...]
That's the Republican dilemma; corporatist profits and slave wages over jobs for Americans and the bigot vote.
Bush was on the side of the corporatists, so the worst of the GOP immigration bills, a la Arizona, never passed during his administrations [...] because big business wanted a continued supply of rock bottom low wage labor. [...]
Americans who have lost their jobs cannibalize themselves by shopping at Wal-Mart because it's -- well -- cheap, and they don't have much money to spend because their jobs were sent overseas or filled here by illegal immigrants.
And who do the Wal-Mart shoppers blame: Obama?
Sometimes you just can't buy stupid.
By GottaLaff
Head-scratcher of the day week month year:
A slim majority of Americans support the new Arizona immigration law, 51% to 36%, according to a new New York Times/CBS News poll.
An overwhelming majority of respondents also believe the nation's immigration laws should undergo an extensive overhaul.
A Gallup poll last week found similar results.
He was rather feisty with Pence.
By GottaLaff
[T]o label this development “Arizona’s folly” trivializes its import and reach. The more you examine the law’s provisions and proponents, the more you realize that it’s the latest and (so far) most vicious battle in a far broader movement that is not just about illegal immigrants — and that is steadily increasing its annexation of one of America’s two major political parties. [...]To be angry about illegal immigration is hardly tantamount to being a bigot. But the Arizona law expressing that anger is bigoted, and in a very particular way. The law dovetails seamlessly with the national “Take Back America” crusade that has attended the rise of Barack Obama and the accelerating demographic shift our first African-American president represents. [...]
[This] is often the same crowd still demanding that the president produce a document proving his own citizenship. [...]
With the whole country now watching Arizona, that “birther” bill was abruptly yanked Thursday.
The legislators who voted for both it and the immigration law were exclusively Republicans, but what happened in the Arizona G.O.P. is not staying in Arizona. Officials in at least 10 other states are now teeing up their own new immigration legislation. They are doing so even in un-Arizonan places like Ohio, Missouri, Maryland and Nebraska, none of them on the Department of Homeland Security’s 2009 list of the 10 states that contain three-quarters of America’s illegal immigrant population. [...]
What a difference the Tea Party makes. [...] McCain, like other mainstream conservative Republicans facing primaries this year, is now fighting for his political life against a Tea Party-supported radical. [...]
McCain, like Arizona, shouldn’t be singled out for censure: He is far from alone in cowering before his party’s extremists. [...] There are few profiles in courage among the leaders in this G.O.P. — only a lot of guys hiding under their desks.
McKinnon and Rove know well that Latino-bashing will ultimately prove political suicide in a century when Hispanic Americans are well on their way to becoming the largest minority in the country and are already the swing voters in many critical states. [...]
It’s also hard to maintain that the Tea Party’s nuttier elements are merely a fringe of a fringe. [...]
The angry right and its apologists also keep insisting that race has nothing to do with their political passions. [...] So how does that profiling work without race or ethnicity, exactly? [...]
In this Alice in Wonderland inversion of reality, it’s politically incorrect to entertain a reasonable suspicion that race may be at least a factor in what drives an action like the Arizona immigration law. Any racism in America, it turns out, is directed at whites. [...]
The rage of 2010 is far more incendiary than anything that went down in 1988, and it will soon leap from illegal immigration to other issues in other states. Boycott the Diamondbacks and Phoenix’s convention hotels if you want to punish Arizona, but don’t for a second believe that it will stop the fire next time.
By GottaLaff
Today's Quickie is a twofer, and they both come by way of Greg Sargent:
That was today's Quickie Twofer. Was it good for you?* Today’s prize for bucking the Beltway-approved narrative goes to Jonathan Alter, for making an audacious suggestion: Rather than asking whether the Gulf spill is Obama’s Katrina, let’s ask whether it should give new momentum to energy reform.* Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio, a gung-ho backer of the Arizona immigration law, says he will decide whether to ride his tough-on-immigration notoriety to launch a run for higher office, commenting thusly:
“I am not running for governor now until I decide over the weekend with a glass of wine and my wife, since my mother and father came here from Italy, with a little spaghetti and meatballs.”
Well now, those are two hefty little Quickies. One relates back to this post, in which I complained about the Katrina meme that the pretend news insists upon pushing.
As for Arpaio, I posted about him here. He's hopeless and has no business being in the public eye or in public office, let alone anywhere else.
By GottaLaff
Los Angeles surpassed its 100,000 count at their immigration rally, per CNN. Gutierrez was in D.C.:
Police arrested Illinois Rep. Luis Gutierrez at an immigration rally outside the White House on Saturday.
Several people interviewed said they had not been to a pro-immigration march since the massive protests in 2006, but that Arizona's law compelled them to come out.
By GottaLaff
My Twitter pal ZenShadow came up with a great idea. Please help out! I will be editing together as many videos as I receive, and all they are... are YOU.
By GottaLaff
Racial profiling has been going on for some time in Arizona, thanks to Sheriff Joe Arpaio, as we've posted over and over. Today the L.A. Times is reporting that very same thing, and it's not pretty:
[...] Latino activists and civil rights attorneys contend that profiling is already a reality in the Maricopa County, where two-thirds of the state's residents live. [...]Arpaio even pulls over his supporters. What better way to maintain popularity with your base?
Since 2008 [Arpaio] has sent hundreds of his deputies and sworn volunteers on "sweeps" through immigrant-heavy neighborhoods, where they stop jaywalkers or drivers with broken taillights and ask for identification and immigration information. An analysis by civil rights lawyers found 70% of those arrested in these operations have Spanish surnames. Maricopa County, which includes Phoenix and Scottsdale, is only 31% Latino, the majority of whom are legal residents or U.S. citizens.
Arpaio's tactics, which he says are necessary to suppress crime, have made him wildly popular in Arizona.
[T]he deputy made him wait 10 minutes before letting him go with the words: "I don't want you to think this has anything to do with racial profiling."
The new Arizona law in effect orders every Arizona law enforcement officer to respond like Arpaio's deputies.
By GottaLaff
Things are bound to get worse now. This is not a good sign:
A sheriff's deputy in central Arizona was shot Friday afternoon by an alleged illegal immigrant, authorities said. [...]
The Pinal County deputy, who was not immediately identified, contacted authorities after being wounded in the desert, saying he had been shot by an illegal immigrant with an AK-47, said Lt. Tammy Villar, a sheriff's spokeswoman. [...]
The shooting is sure to heat up the debate around the new Arizona law.
By GottaLaff
My impassioned 72-year-old Twitter pal, who goes by the name 42bkdodgr, would like to share his feelings about the Arizona "Papers Please" law and comparisons to Nazi Germany. I am more than happy to oblige.
But first, a personal note from 42bkdodgr:
Many of you may wonder why I chose to use the “ 72 year old friend” as the introduction to my Special Comments. I selected the moniker so readers could see that from my age and life experiences I give a different perspective to the issues of today.
Un-AmericanChris Matthews in his segment “Let Me Finish” on April 28, spoke about the use of such words as Nazism and Hitlerism by liberals and conservatives when objecting to laws and policies adopted by the federal or state governments they believe to be un-American.
One of the examples Chris used was the recent law enacted by Arizona relating to illegal immigrants. Chris stated that there is a big difference between what Arizona is trying to do-- preventing people from entering America illegally-- and what Hitler did, killing people who were trying to flee Germany.
There is one basic item that is the same in both policies.
The Arizona police may stop anyone for reasonable suspicion who they believe may be in the country illegally. That is the same tactic used by the Gestapo in Germany, by asking people for their papers, with no reasonable cause, only to see if they had proper identification papers to be where they were.
German citizens had to carry their identification papers with them at all times, which is the same requirement under the Arizona law for its citizens.
There are two other examples I believe come under Nazi type tactics.
A GOP congressional candidate proposes installing microchips on illegal immigrants. Doing something like that, would be a modern day version of Hitler requiring patches to be worn on clothing to identify those Germans who were Jewish, Communists, homosexuals or political opponents.
Then we have Duncan Hunter Jr., who stated at a tea party rally in California, that children born in the United States whose parents came to this country illegally should be deported.
In the 1930s, Hitler passed laws that natural born Jewish Germans weren’t considered citizens of Nazi Germany, and among other things, couldn’t hold public office, be a judge, a doctor or teach in the public school system or universities.
The scary part is Duncan Hunter favors deporting natural born citizens of the United States, even though promoting such a policy is in direct violation of the Amendment XIV of the U.S. Constitution.
Conservative Republicans, like Duncan Hunter, love to say the Constitution is the law of the land and it should be obeyed, but they sure like to tear it apart when it gets in the way of their ideology.
While the policies enacted and those being advocated are in no way as evil as those used in Nazi Germany, I just feel the basic foundation of those policies are the same used in Germany.
By GottaLaff
So by equating immigrants with terrorists, Governor Brewer thinks she can justify racial profiling. Sadly, attitudes like this are not surprising, considering the profiling that has gone on since the 9/11 attacks.
I suppose she's also advising the authorities to keep a sharp eye out for white people, like, you know, Tim McVeigh:
.jpg)
