As we’ve heard from the news, two anti-government terrorists with links to white supremacist groups just murdered two policemen with an AK-47 during a routine traffic stop in Arkansas.
The two terrorists were Jerry Kane and his son. Kane had a long police record based on many run-ins with the law, due largely to his belief that all governmental activity is illegal and no federal or local authority has any power over him. When he was sent to jail for driving without a license and refusing to identify himself, he complained about the “Nazi checkpoint” and lamented that the police had told him to either produce his papers or go to jail – which is wildly ironic since his fellow wingnuts want to impose that very standard on Latinos in Arizona. He promised to sue one arresting officer for kidnapping and extortion, and then did a “background check” on the cop to learn his address and his wife’s name; on the radio he promised to show up at the cop’s house and present an “invoice” for $80,000, presumably backing up his demand with a weapon. When a judge sentenced him to community service, he claimed the judge was “enslaving” him and demanded that he be paid $100,000 per day.
Kane financed his existence the way a number of teabaggers do, by giving seminars on “debt elimination” which are illegal scams – telling people they never have to repay their credit cards or even their mortgage, because the lenders are engaging in “mortgage fraud”.
There is a videotape of one of these seminars, in which Kane essentially tells the audience that people who are legally coming to demand money, like IRS investigators, are criminals who must be attacked violently. A local IRS agent was described as a “stalker” whereupon Kane told the audience to hunt her down and beat her with a baseball bat.
Kane says “I don’t want to kill anybody but if they keep messing with me that’s what it’s going to come down to. And if I have to kill one, then I’m not going to be able to stop. I just know it. I mean I have an addictive personality…They’re criminals, it’s time to conquer. Find out where she [the IRS agent] goes and hangs out, get a bunch of friends together, and beat her ass, break her fucking legs….I’m not advocating violence, I’m advocating ‘conquering’. It’s not violence....You can aim for the head, she’s probably wearing a bulletproof vest….” He also talks about killing the enemy’s babies and their wives, like Joshua did in the Bible.
The audience clearly agreed with him, insisting that even if a policeman has a badge, that isn’t enough -- “show me your delegation of authority.” Another said “they drew first blood, you are self-defending.”
http://vodpod.com/watch/3675600-jerry-kane-shootout-suspect-from-memphis-seen-here-promoting-violence
Neatly enough, other terrorists are doing the same thing, resorting to crime to support their aims. Al-Qa’ida elements use kidnapping and extortion to generate revenue.
Police warned that this teabagger could be dangerous to the police. And they proved to be right. And according to the SPLC, the number of these groups as skyrocketed since we got ourselves a black president.
Showing posts with label law. Show all posts
Showing posts with label law. Show all posts
Sunday, 23 May 2010
How Rand Paul outsmarted us all…
Remember the West Wing episode in which the President caught a lot of flack for saying something controversial to a reporter when he thought the mike was off? Only it wasn’t a mistake – he did it on purpose?
I’m thinking Rand Paul did the same sort of thing on Rachel Maddow.
Let me set the stage here. After the 2008 election, statisticians took a good look at the election results, county by county, and compared them with the 2004 race. They found that most of the country gave Obama more support than Kerry had gotten in 2004, which is unsurprising since Obama won and Kerry lost. But there is a particular part of the country where Obama actually lost ground, relative to Kerry. That zone runs from West Virginia, down the Appalachians through Kentucky and Tennessee, and then across the river into Arkansas and Oklahoma. In other words, the economically depressed areas filled with white racists didn’t like having a black president.
The epicenter of that we-hate-Obama belt is in Tennessee. Kentucky, right next door, was also really bad for Obama – he lost Kentucky by almost 300,000 votes, one of his five or six worst states.
Everybody is bellowing that Rand Paul blew it on the Maddow show. I don’t think he did. I think he signalled to his true supporters – the gigantic racist vote in Kentucky – that he is one of them. That was no mistake: it was a perfect reflection of his own views, as well as those of his father, who argued six years ago that the federal government was wrong to prevent private businesses from discriminating against minorities. He is emitting an endless series of explanations, not to clarify his views, but to keep his name out there front and center – to remind his true followers that he is still one of them.
And Paul’s latest policy statement on BP is also in keeping with that. BP is a foreign company that has inflicted incredible disaster on the American economy, but Rand Paul is insisting that Obama is “un-American” for criticizing BP. In other words, Obama the blameless American leader is more un-American than the foreign folks who turned Louisiana into a toxic waste dump.
Or, to break the Rand Paul code, “Kenya” is more un-American than “Britain”, because “black” is more un-American than “white”.
“I am still one of you! I’m still a racist! I’m not going to go Hollywood on you!”
The media people think they’re hurting Paul when they label him an extremist. Au contraire: every time they say it, he wins more supporters in the only place he cares about, Kentucky. The fact that the other 49 states think he’s Lester Maddox elicits only amused indifference in him.
All Republicans know by now that tangling with Rachel Maddow and her ninja-like research staff is like hanging a curveball on Albert Pujols: you make the slightest mistake and he will give the ball a ride all the way to the Mississippi River. So Rand Paul had nothing to gain and everything to lose by going on Maddow’s show, deep in enemy territory on MSNBC: unless Paul intended to make a “mistake” on purpose.
I’m thinking Rand Paul did the same sort of thing on Rachel Maddow.
Let me set the stage here. After the 2008 election, statisticians took a good look at the election results, county by county, and compared them with the 2004 race. They found that most of the country gave Obama more support than Kerry had gotten in 2004, which is unsurprising since Obama won and Kerry lost. But there is a particular part of the country where Obama actually lost ground, relative to Kerry. That zone runs from West Virginia, down the Appalachians through Kentucky and Tennessee, and then across the river into Arkansas and Oklahoma. In other words, the economically depressed areas filled with white racists didn’t like having a black president.
The epicenter of that we-hate-Obama belt is in Tennessee. Kentucky, right next door, was also really bad for Obama – he lost Kentucky by almost 300,000 votes, one of his five or six worst states.
Everybody is bellowing that Rand Paul blew it on the Maddow show. I don’t think he did. I think he signalled to his true supporters – the gigantic racist vote in Kentucky – that he is one of them. That was no mistake: it was a perfect reflection of his own views, as well as those of his father, who argued six years ago that the federal government was wrong to prevent private businesses from discriminating against minorities. He is emitting an endless series of explanations, not to clarify his views, but to keep his name out there front and center – to remind his true followers that he is still one of them.
And Paul’s latest policy statement on BP is also in keeping with that. BP is a foreign company that has inflicted incredible disaster on the American economy, but Rand Paul is insisting that Obama is “un-American” for criticizing BP. In other words, Obama the blameless American leader is more un-American than the foreign folks who turned Louisiana into a toxic waste dump.
Or, to break the Rand Paul code, “Kenya” is more un-American than “Britain”, because “black” is more un-American than “white”.
“I am still one of you! I’m still a racist! I’m not going to go Hollywood on you!”
The media people think they’re hurting Paul when they label him an extremist. Au contraire: every time they say it, he wins more supporters in the only place he cares about, Kentucky. The fact that the other 49 states think he’s Lester Maddox elicits only amused indifference in him.
All Republicans know by now that tangling with Rachel Maddow and her ninja-like research staff is like hanging a curveball on Albert Pujols: you make the slightest mistake and he will give the ball a ride all the way to the Mississippi River. So Rand Paul had nothing to gain and everything to lose by going on Maddow’s show, deep in enemy territory on MSNBC: unless Paul intended to make a “mistake” on purpose.
Thursday, 20 May 2010
GOP hypocrisy in the desert
Arizona drafts a Nazi-like immigration law; Los Angeles calls for a boycott of Arizona. And now?
A utility commissioner in Arizona has sent a letter to LA’s mayor, threatening to cut off the electricity from Los Angeles, to retaliate for the boycott. A lot of LA’s power runs through Arizona.
Arizona has set up a PR task force to repair its image, but short of repealing the law, what do they do?
And the threat itself isn’t the most outrageous part.
The most outrageous part is that these white, ultra-right-wing whack jobs who are screeching “HOW DARE THEY BOYCOTT US??” are the same tobacky-chewing country-western yahoos who screamed “BOYCOTT THE DIXIE CHICKS! IT’S OUR INALIENABLE RIGHT! FREE SPEECH! YEE HAW!” seven years ago.
Back then, you see, boycotts were just hunky-dory for the wingnuts.
Now, of course, they are on the opposite end of the shotgun. And suddenly they think it’s a bad idea.
Just like all schoolyard bullies prefer beating people up to getting beat up themselves.
A utility commissioner in Arizona has sent a letter to LA’s mayor, threatening to cut off the electricity from Los Angeles, to retaliate for the boycott. A lot of LA’s power runs through Arizona.
Arizona has set up a PR task force to repair its image, but short of repealing the law, what do they do?
And the threat itself isn’t the most outrageous part.
The most outrageous part is that these white, ultra-right-wing whack jobs who are screeching “HOW DARE THEY BOYCOTT US??” are the same tobacky-chewing country-western yahoos who screamed “BOYCOTT THE DIXIE CHICKS! IT’S OUR INALIENABLE RIGHT! FREE SPEECH! YEE HAW!” seven years ago.
Back then, you see, boycotts were just hunky-dory for the wingnuts.
Now, of course, they are on the opposite end of the shotgun. And suddenly they think it’s a bad idea.
Just like all schoolyard bullies prefer beating people up to getting beat up themselves.
Friday, 14 May 2010
reasons for Democrats to smile
The website ThinkProgress has had a great couple of days:
77 percent of Arizonans want Obama to pass immigration reform – they prefer a federal law over their own brand-new, idiotic state law. (elsewhere on the net, Republican operatives have admitted privately that they chose Tampa rather than Phoenix for their 2012 convention partly because the new Arizona immigration law would make the GOP look bad. Ouch!).
Maine Republican caucus-goers were forced to apologize for vandalizing a junior-high building. They tore down a poster, went through a teacher’s personal effects, and stole property. Even the kids were incensed. My favorite quote: “Republicans opened a closed cardboard box they found near Clifford’s desk and later objected to the fact that it contained copies of the U.S. Constitution donated to the school by the American Civil Liberties Union. “ After busting into the guy’s private effects, they complained that he had a copy of the Constitution!
More frat-house hijinx! The House GOP killed a jobs bill by attaching poison-pill language calling for any federal worker who even sees pornography to be fired. One giggling Republican brayed “We certainly should do more of this type of thing!” And actually they have played this kind of frat-house stunt to obstruct an energy efficiency bill, a health care bill, and a health and education bill. And if the Democrats don’t fold, the Republicans run ads like “Barbara Boxer Votes To Allow Convicted Sex Offenders To Receive Taxpayer-Funded Viagra!”
[ As we noted earlier, the Republicans are stomping all over Democratic ideas because, as they have admitted, they have no ideas of their own. They launched an abortive effort to set up a fancy cool-ideas council which really consisted of holding town halls so the party leaders could crib from the ideas that the voters themselves suggested. Then they set up a remake of “Contract With America” which, again, is just a suggestion box so that voters can do the party’s homework for them. And now House GOP leader Cantor has set up a website called “YOUCUT”, and again the idea is that you, the voter, come up with ideas for how to cut government spending. The problem with the plan is that the cuts proposed on the site are described dishonestly, and even if voters chose all of the cuts, it would only save a billion out of a trillion-dollar budget. So the Republicans are dishonest AND lazy AND futile. ]
The Oklahoma legislature has passed legislation mandating that abortion patients must: give up their personal details so they can be posted on a website, look at an ultrasound of their embryos, give up the right to sue a doctor if he lies about the state of the fetus, and give up any form of insurance coverage for abortion, unless you get a special policy.
http://thinkprogress.org/
And some other reasons to smile:
A new poll shows that a majority of voters would not support Sarah Palin for presidency. A majority of ALASKANS. One of the most conservative, Republican states in the union, and they don’t want her to run. Meanwhile, her opponent should she get the nomination, Obama, is hitting his highest approvals since October 2009, according to a new PPP poll.
The latest USA Today analysis shows that Americans are paying less tax than at any time in the last 60 years – going all the way back to Harry Truman. This is largely based on the middle class tax cut in the stimulus bill that the GOP opposed. So much for the teabaggers – their whole reason for existing is a gigantic fraud. “Taxed enough already” indeed.
Not that this is really good news, but Obama’s effort to pass climate energy legislation seemingly gets another boost every week: coal mines blow up, oil wells spill, nuclear reactors leak radioactive waste into drinking water….just as the nonsense in Arizona gives new momentum to another Obama initiative, immigration reform. Two other issues are also boosting the immigration effort: evangelicals who hope Latinos will vote GOP if the GOP stops fighting immigration reform, are defying rightwingers who want to block reform; also, people are beginning to ask how the Republican plan to build some sort of Maginot Line along the Mexican border can possibly work, when almost half of illegal immigrants cross the border legally and then overstay their visas. And a lot of the rest of them use tunnels, which makes a fence kinda stupid.
As we learned earlier, the GOP leadership said publicly that they would not defend its incumbents against attacks from the right by teabag candidates. Senator Bob Bennett was just tossed out of his own reelection race by the Utah GOP, and some raised the prospect of Bennett running as a write-in; John Cornyn, head of the Republican committee that is set up to elect Republicans to the Senate, reiterated that Bennett will get not a nickel from the party. Wouldn’t it be neat if Bennett stuck it to the Republicans by (a) switching parties, or (b) backing Harry Reid in shooting down GOP filibusters?
For that matter, since the Maine GOP has been hiacked by teabaggers, and has approved a platform slamming Obamacare, unions, motor voter which helps minorities too much, apparently), gay marriage, climate change legislation….isn’t this the perfect time for Collins and Snowe to quit a party that clearly doesn’t want them anymore, and join the Democrats? Particularly when their fellow Maine Republicans are acting like a Mongol horde?
And lastly, I finally figured out why I keep laughing involuntarily whenever John Boehner comes on TV to yell and scream about Obama’s evil communist plots. It’s because he sounds exactly like Sylvester the Cat. Suffering succotash! That one had been bothering me all year.
77 percent of Arizonans want Obama to pass immigration reform – they prefer a federal law over their own brand-new, idiotic state law. (elsewhere on the net, Republican operatives have admitted privately that they chose Tampa rather than Phoenix for their 2012 convention partly because the new Arizona immigration law would make the GOP look bad. Ouch!).
Maine Republican caucus-goers were forced to apologize for vandalizing a junior-high building. They tore down a poster, went through a teacher’s personal effects, and stole property. Even the kids were incensed. My favorite quote: “Republicans opened a closed cardboard box they found near Clifford’s desk and later objected to the fact that it contained copies of the U.S. Constitution donated to the school by the American Civil Liberties Union. “ After busting into the guy’s private effects, they complained that he had a copy of the Constitution!
More frat-house hijinx! The House GOP killed a jobs bill by attaching poison-pill language calling for any federal worker who even sees pornography to be fired. One giggling Republican brayed “We certainly should do more of this type of thing!” And actually they have played this kind of frat-house stunt to obstruct an energy efficiency bill, a health care bill, and a health and education bill. And if the Democrats don’t fold, the Republicans run ads like “Barbara Boxer Votes To Allow Convicted Sex Offenders To Receive Taxpayer-Funded Viagra!”
[ As we noted earlier, the Republicans are stomping all over Democratic ideas because, as they have admitted, they have no ideas of their own. They launched an abortive effort to set up a fancy cool-ideas council which really consisted of holding town halls so the party leaders could crib from the ideas that the voters themselves suggested. Then they set up a remake of “Contract With America” which, again, is just a suggestion box so that voters can do the party’s homework for them. And now House GOP leader Cantor has set up a website called “YOUCUT”, and again the idea is that you, the voter, come up with ideas for how to cut government spending. The problem with the plan is that the cuts proposed on the site are described dishonestly, and even if voters chose all of the cuts, it would only save a billion out of a trillion-dollar budget. So the Republicans are dishonest AND lazy AND futile. ]
The Oklahoma legislature has passed legislation mandating that abortion patients must: give up their personal details so they can be posted on a website, look at an ultrasound of their embryos, give up the right to sue a doctor if he lies about the state of the fetus, and give up any form of insurance coverage for abortion, unless you get a special policy.
http://thinkprogress.org/
And some other reasons to smile:
A new poll shows that a majority of voters would not support Sarah Palin for presidency. A majority of ALASKANS. One of the most conservative, Republican states in the union, and they don’t want her to run. Meanwhile, her opponent should she get the nomination, Obama, is hitting his highest approvals since October 2009, according to a new PPP poll.
The latest USA Today analysis shows that Americans are paying less tax than at any time in the last 60 years – going all the way back to Harry Truman. This is largely based on the middle class tax cut in the stimulus bill that the GOP opposed. So much for the teabaggers – their whole reason for existing is a gigantic fraud. “Taxed enough already” indeed.
Not that this is really good news, but Obama’s effort to pass climate energy legislation seemingly gets another boost every week: coal mines blow up, oil wells spill, nuclear reactors leak radioactive waste into drinking water….just as the nonsense in Arizona gives new momentum to another Obama initiative, immigration reform. Two other issues are also boosting the immigration effort: evangelicals who hope Latinos will vote GOP if the GOP stops fighting immigration reform, are defying rightwingers who want to block reform; also, people are beginning to ask how the Republican plan to build some sort of Maginot Line along the Mexican border can possibly work, when almost half of illegal immigrants cross the border legally and then overstay their visas. And a lot of the rest of them use tunnels, which makes a fence kinda stupid.
As we learned earlier, the GOP leadership said publicly that they would not defend its incumbents against attacks from the right by teabag candidates. Senator Bob Bennett was just tossed out of his own reelection race by the Utah GOP, and some raised the prospect of Bennett running as a write-in; John Cornyn, head of the Republican committee that is set up to elect Republicans to the Senate, reiterated that Bennett will get not a nickel from the party. Wouldn’t it be neat if Bennett stuck it to the Republicans by (a) switching parties, or (b) backing Harry Reid in shooting down GOP filibusters?
For that matter, since the Maine GOP has been hiacked by teabaggers, and has approved a platform slamming Obamacare, unions, motor voter which helps minorities too much, apparently), gay marriage, climate change legislation….isn’t this the perfect time for Collins and Snowe to quit a party that clearly doesn’t want them anymore, and join the Democrats? Particularly when their fellow Maine Republicans are acting like a Mongol horde?
And lastly, I finally figured out why I keep laughing involuntarily whenever John Boehner comes on TV to yell and scream about Obama’s evil communist plots. It’s because he sounds exactly like Sylvester the Cat. Suffering succotash! That one had been bothering me all year.
Why Kagan means the apocalypse!
Apocalypse for the wingnuts and Republican bigots, that is.
Obama has picked Elena Kagan for the Supreme Court.
Kagan is Jewish.
Let’s stop and appreciate the enormity of this historic moment.
For the first time ever, there will be no white male Protestants anywhere in the leadership of the U.S. government.
Obama, black, no fixed church (half-black, if you want to be fussy).
Joe Biden, Catholic.
Nancy Pelosi, female Catholic.
Harry Reid, Mormon.
Supreme Court, six Catholics and three Jews, including a black, a Hispanic and three women.
The leadership of the U.S. government will include no white male Protestants, and the only Republicans are on the Court – and even there, the number of Republican appointees is going down by one.
So if you belong to, say, the Klan, or Stormfront, or the American Nazis, or the other denizens of the wingnut-teabag underworld – all the people who look down on women, Jews, blacks, Catholics, or anyone who’s different -- get ready to screw yourselves into the ceiling.
In a way, I wish the lesbian rumors about Kagan were true, just to drive them completely insane.
Obama has picked Elena Kagan for the Supreme Court.
Kagan is Jewish.
Let’s stop and appreciate the enormity of this historic moment.
For the first time ever, there will be no white male Protestants anywhere in the leadership of the U.S. government.
Obama, black, no fixed church (half-black, if you want to be fussy).
Joe Biden, Catholic.
Nancy Pelosi, female Catholic.
Harry Reid, Mormon.
Supreme Court, six Catholics and three Jews, including a black, a Hispanic and three women.
The leadership of the U.S. government will include no white male Protestants, and the only Republicans are on the Court – and even there, the number of Republican appointees is going down by one.
So if you belong to, say, the Klan, or Stormfront, or the American Nazis, or the other denizens of the wingnut-teabag underworld – all the people who look down on women, Jews, blacks, Catholics, or anyone who’s different -- get ready to screw yourselves into the ceiling.
In a way, I wish the lesbian rumors about Kagan were true, just to drive them completely insane.
Sunday, 9 May 2010
Arizona declares war on the same people they stole the land from
Two things you forgot about Arizona!
We just learned that the Senate asked the Republican governor of Arizona to delay implementation of their “papers please” policy until next year, to give Congress a chance to do what the Republicans claim they want done – immigration reform. The governor told the Senate to pound sand. This makes it even more likely that Congress will try to tackle the problem this year.
So as Congress takes this on, I want to remind you of two things you forgot.
First, the Republicans know that when all those aliens get citizenship, they will vote. And they will vote in gigantic numbers for the party that got them the vote: the Democrats. So when they get down to the nut-cutting, the Republican party leadership will put out the word: KILL THIS BILL AT ALL COSTS.
Second, and this is the big one: we stole Arizona from the Mexicans. The United States had no legal claim whatsoever to Arizona, but we just sent our soldiers and grabbed it from the Mexicans. Even Abraham Lincoln, who expended hundreds of thousands of lives to nail down possession of disputed real estate, thought the land grab from the Mexicans was bogus, based on fraudulent claims of warlike acts by the enemy (sound familiar?). After the white folks ripped off the brown folks, they also attacked the red folks and put them in “reservations”, which in other countries are called “concentration camps”. So the Arizona land that the white folks are so bitterly defending from the brown folks…is the same land they stole from the brown folks in the first place.
We just learned that the Senate asked the Republican governor of Arizona to delay implementation of their “papers please” policy until next year, to give Congress a chance to do what the Republicans claim they want done – immigration reform. The governor told the Senate to pound sand. This makes it even more likely that Congress will try to tackle the problem this year.
So as Congress takes this on, I want to remind you of two things you forgot.
First, the Republicans know that when all those aliens get citizenship, they will vote. And they will vote in gigantic numbers for the party that got them the vote: the Democrats. So when they get down to the nut-cutting, the Republican party leadership will put out the word: KILL THIS BILL AT ALL COSTS.
Second, and this is the big one: we stole Arizona from the Mexicans. The United States had no legal claim whatsoever to Arizona, but we just sent our soldiers and grabbed it from the Mexicans. Even Abraham Lincoln, who expended hundreds of thousands of lives to nail down possession of disputed real estate, thought the land grab from the Mexicans was bogus, based on fraudulent claims of warlike acts by the enemy (sound familiar?). After the white folks ripped off the brown folks, they also attacked the red folks and put them in “reservations”, which in other countries are called “concentration camps”. So the Arizona land that the white folks are so bitterly defending from the brown folks…is the same land they stole from the brown folks in the first place.
Friday, 7 May 2010
the wingnuts want to surender their freedoms to...Hillary Clinton
Joe Lieberman’s proposal to strip the U.S. citizenship of anyone who is even accused of supporting with a terrorist group, without any due process, is so clearly unconstitutional that both Democrats and Republicans alike have ridiculed it.
But there is a small, admittedly irresponsible part of me that wants this law passed.
The rightwing yahoos, the most wild-eyed wingnuts, love this plan. “You ain’t a real Umurkin anymore, Abu, hit the trail!!”
But they don’t realize that a key provision in the law gives overwhelming police power to the all-time hero of the American wingnut community…Hillary Clinton.
The law prescribes that the Secretary of State has power that is incredibly broad, pardon the expression: the power to decide who should lose their citizenship, and then execute the decision. All Hillary needs to do is make a “determination” and send a letter to the Attorney General, and poof! You’re no longer a citizen.
So the wingnuts are hollering to win passage of a law which will give their worst (imaginary) enemy the power to take away their citizenship, and also supporting other bills which would strip non-citizens of virtually all of the freedoms we take for granted – like the Arizona law, and others under consideration in places like Texas.
So put the pieces together. Hillary declares that a local Texas yahoo militia is a terrorist group, and that its members are no longer citizens. And then the Texas police act on their new-found police powers to arrest the militia members on the street without probable cause and throw them in jail, indefinitely, even if no crime is committed.
Cue scary music!
Cue conspiracy theories!
Cue black helicopters!
And the lesson here, you fascist morons, is two-fold: (a) if you tell lawmakers to take away freedom from others, then you lose your freedom as well, particularly when (b) your rock-throwing, gun-waving behavor makes you look like – what’s the word? Terrorists. Acting like terrorists, and calling for terrorists to be thrown in a cell without trial, all at the same time – it’s a kinda stupid strategy. Giving wingnut nemesis Hillary Clinton the power to take your freedom away, just makes it stupid and funny at the same time.
And for bonus points, did anybody spot the historical irony in this story? Lieberman is getting his ideas about stripping citizenship from undesireables from…that’s right, the Third Reich. Who meted this treatment out to…that’s right, the Jews.
Oh, and a side-note: did you notice that John Boehner actually did the responsible thing, in shooting down Lieberman? That’s because the Republicans are starting to believe their own bullcrap: they really believe they can take the House, so Boehner is starting to act “Speaker-like”.
But there is a small, admittedly irresponsible part of me that wants this law passed.
The rightwing yahoos, the most wild-eyed wingnuts, love this plan. “You ain’t a real Umurkin anymore, Abu, hit the trail!!”
But they don’t realize that a key provision in the law gives overwhelming police power to the all-time hero of the American wingnut community…Hillary Clinton.
The law prescribes that the Secretary of State has power that is incredibly broad, pardon the expression: the power to decide who should lose their citizenship, and then execute the decision. All Hillary needs to do is make a “determination” and send a letter to the Attorney General, and poof! You’re no longer a citizen.
So the wingnuts are hollering to win passage of a law which will give their worst (imaginary) enemy the power to take away their citizenship, and also supporting other bills which would strip non-citizens of virtually all of the freedoms we take for granted – like the Arizona law, and others under consideration in places like Texas.
So put the pieces together. Hillary declares that a local Texas yahoo militia is a terrorist group, and that its members are no longer citizens. And then the Texas police act on their new-found police powers to arrest the militia members on the street without probable cause and throw them in jail, indefinitely, even if no crime is committed.
Cue scary music!
Cue conspiracy theories!
Cue black helicopters!
And the lesson here, you fascist morons, is two-fold: (a) if you tell lawmakers to take away freedom from others, then you lose your freedom as well, particularly when (b) your rock-throwing, gun-waving behavor makes you look like – what’s the word? Terrorists. Acting like terrorists, and calling for terrorists to be thrown in a cell without trial, all at the same time – it’s a kinda stupid strategy. Giving wingnut nemesis Hillary Clinton the power to take your freedom away, just makes it stupid and funny at the same time.
And for bonus points, did anybody spot the historical irony in this story? Lieberman is getting his ideas about stripping citizenship from undesireables from…that’s right, the Third Reich. Who meted this treatment out to…that’s right, the Jews.
Oh, and a side-note: did you notice that John Boehner actually did the responsible thing, in shooting down Lieberman? That’s because the Republicans are starting to believe their own bullcrap: they really believe they can take the House, so Boehner is starting to act “Speaker-like”.
Monday, 3 May 2010
Big bad federal gummint identifies bomber in two days
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/03/times-square-bomb-attempt_n_561673.html
And in two minutes, the wingnuts will start screaming that Big Bad Gummint is depriving him of his rights....
**UPDATE** -- Boy was I wrong! Now the wingnuts are complaining because Obama didn't deprive him of his rights. They are complaining that this U.S. citizen was actually Mirandized. Do these yuckapucks not understand that if we don't Mirandize them, then we lose a big pile of testimony and evidence under the poisoned-fruit doctrine? Do they understand that eventually we're going to need to start living up to that freedom and justice stuff, and actually put people on trial instead of torturing and killing them? Isn't that distinction a key reason why we removed Saddam from power?
That's the thing with Republican illogic -- it can go in any direction. When you're not tethered to reality, you can slam Obama for adhering to the rules too much, or not enough, or even both, all at the same time.
And in two minutes, the wingnuts will start screaming that Big Bad Gummint is depriving him of his rights....
**UPDATE** -- Boy was I wrong! Now the wingnuts are complaining because Obama didn't deprive him of his rights. They are complaining that this U.S. citizen was actually Mirandized. Do these yuckapucks not understand that if we don't Mirandize them, then we lose a big pile of testimony and evidence under the poisoned-fruit doctrine? Do they understand that eventually we're going to need to start living up to that freedom and justice stuff, and actually put people on trial instead of torturing and killing them? Isn't that distinction a key reason why we removed Saddam from power?
That's the thing with Republican illogic -- it can go in any direction. When you're not tethered to reality, you can slam Obama for adhering to the rules too much, or not enough, or even both, all at the same time.
Sunday, 2 May 2010
Oil slick! We need Big Gummint!
Gee, the wingnuts are cracking down on Obama, to bring Big Gummint in and whup up on those big bad oil companies. Clearly their sense of irony is...as sharp as it ever is.
As the Washington Monthly correctly pointed out, Obama had the Navy and Coast Guard out there immediately, and already more than a dozen agencies are busting their butts on this -- seems like half his cabinet is down there already. But they're not magicians. Blaming the fireman (Obama) instead of the arsonist (BP) is intellectually dishonest, which is of course why the Republicans will embrace the strategy enthusiastically.
And Obama is not the president who approved the rig or the oversight plan thereof. Seems to me like the only thing Obama did wrong, was to trust BP and Haliburton not to lie about what was going on in the Gulf. I don’t expect he’s going to do that again.
This makes it easier to decide whether to push immigration reform – which unites Democrats and divides Republicans – or energy legislation – which splits Democrats and unites Republicans.
As the Washington Monthly correctly pointed out, Obama had the Navy and Coast Guard out there immediately, and already more than a dozen agencies are busting their butts on this -- seems like half his cabinet is down there already. But they're not magicians. Blaming the fireman (Obama) instead of the arsonist (BP) is intellectually dishonest, which is of course why the Republicans will embrace the strategy enthusiastically.
And Obama is not the president who approved the rig or the oversight plan thereof. Seems to me like the only thing Obama did wrong, was to trust BP and Haliburton not to lie about what was going on in the Gulf. I don’t expect he’s going to do that again.
This makes it easier to decide whether to push immigration reform – which unites Democrats and divides Republicans – or energy legislation – which splits Democrats and unites Republicans.
Saturday, 1 May 2010
Why Arizona really matters
Why the Democrats need to push immigration reform right now:
The Democrats are on a roll, finally figuring out how to shame Republicans into ending their filibusters. But that’s not why they need to push immigration reform.
Right now people are really steamed about the Arizona “Papers Please” law. But that’s not why to push reform, either.
Right now other states – Texas, Ohio, Utah – are thinking about passing similar laws; soon there could be whole swaths of the country where it’s pretty much illegal to be brown. But that’s not why we need to move on this.
The reason we need to do this now is that the “arrest everybody who’s brown” tactic could have disastrous consequences on election day. The threat of widespread arrests based on skin color is nothing short of vote suppression: how many Latinos are going to stay away from the polls in November just to avoid getting thrown in jail by all those cops standing around at the polls? What could stop the cops from simply arresting all the Mexicans at your local polling place, and only letting the white folks vote? Could this asinine law be the element that allows McCain to keep his job until he’s 80?
That’s the real reason why we need immigration reform.
Q. What legal impediment is there, to stop a crooked, irresponsible sheriff like Arpaio from simply throwing every Mexican in jail on election day, so that only whites can vote, and then letting all the detainees back out again the next day?
A. Nothing at all. It is now perfectly legal for white Republicans to steal the election.
The Republicans know full well that passage of serious immigration reform would be really bad for them but great for everyone else: Lindsey Graham, who earlier was screeching at Obama for not moving fast enough on immigration reform, is now screeching that the Democrats must STOP pushing it or he will stonewall everything else going through the Senate.
As the Washington Monthly pointed out, the Immigration Reform Law Institute is the group which is taking credit for writing the Arizona bill, and is now urging the legislature to amend the bill and make it easier for police to concoct legal pretexts for harassing innocent brown people, to include city rules such as having a car up on blocks (they also admitted that the law as originally written was a racial-profiling law by passing a no-profiling amendment). The guy spearheading that amendment effort is the same guy who formerly was Chairman of the Kansas Republican Party, where he took credit for the vote-caging effort there – the entirely illegal effort to get blacks and Mexicans thrown off the voter rolls if they fail to answer a registered-mail verification, something they didn’t bother to do in white areas.
Gee, can anybody see the pattern here?
Republicans go after minorities in Kansas, to stop them from voting Democratic.
Republicans throw Arizona Mexicans in jail, to stop them from showing their faces on the street so they can vote Democratic.
Republican vote suppression in Ohio, stop voters from voting Democratic, steal the 2004 presidential election.
Illegal Republican voter suppression in black and Hispanic sections of Florida, stop voters from voting Democratic, steal the 2000 presidential election.
Republicans go all out to destroy any African-American voter registration effort, stop them from voting Democratic.
Republican hissy fits when one alleged “Black Panther” shows up at a polling place with a “stick” – screeching “Hey, he’s only a Democrat, only Republicans are allowed to commit voter suppression!!”
Republicans declare war on union groups, because they organize Democratic voters.
Republicans declare war on lawyers and push for tort reform, because they organize Democratic voters.
Republicans bitterly resist all efforts to reform the electoral college, because the current system artificially suppresses the power of Democratic voters, by disproportionately emphasizing the voices of the Republicans of the Great Plains.
Republicans shamelessly pushing Voter ID laws, voter purging laws, ex-con disenfranchisement laws.
Republicans putting scumbags like Katherine Harris in charge of voting laws.
Republicans jamming the phone lines of Democratic organizers to suppress voter turnout in New Hampshire.
Republicans illegally registering voters using pro-marijuana petitions.
Republicans suppressing voter representation in Democratic districts by sending fake census forms so the real forms don’t get filled out.
Republicans undertaking such a widespread vote suppression effort in the Virginia gubernatorial race that the FBI had to step in.
Republicans pushing vote suppression in the 2008 race, using caging, purging and delays a polling places to stop people from voting for Obama in Georgia, Michigan, Ohio, Montana, Wisconsin.
The Republicans seemingly can’t stop them from doing incredibly stupid things, pissing off Mexicans with their stance on Sotomayor and their immigration policies, pissing off blacks with their 19th-century attitudes toward Obama, pissing off women with their antediluvian policies on abortion, possing off young people with their fiscal policies, pissing off gays…They know that soon they will only have adult white men, who currently comprise only about 24 percent of America, and dropping. They know that the Republican party is doomed, for demographic reasons, and all they can do is try to delay the inevitable, with illegal voter suppression. So we will see more and more of it.
And what happens when Obama passes immigration reform, and gives 11 million Mexicans a clear path toward becoming citizens…and voting?
In the meantime there are one or two problems with that law, that will get it overturned.
It empowers virtually any government employee to jail almost any citizen without cause.
It mandates that government employees MUST pursue illegals.
It doesn’t properly define who can invoke these powers, or what qualification or training is required.
It will require that some people incriminate themselves.
It provides for entrapment.
It mandates the payment of court costs without due process.
It violates civil procedure by imposing costs on defendants without court involvement.
It eradicates the doctrine that any suspect is innocent until proven guilty.
It imposes penalties on anyone who brings another person into their home or car, or even invites them to Arizona.
It virtually assures that innocent people will be detained, injured or killed.
It mandates transfer of state detainees to federal facilities without federal input, and makes no provision for federal refusal to implement that mandate.
It essentially makes brown skin into probable cause.
The worst, most incompetent lawyer in the world could get this overturned in any federal court. Not only should the law be overturned, but whichever moron wrote it should be disbarred for criminal incompetence. In years to come, they will use this asinine law as a pop quiz in freshman-level Constitutional Law -- okay kids, the student who finds the most errors gets an A!
So why did the governor sign this piece of garbage?
According to Mother Jones, that crazy Arizona governor signed that crazy Arizona immigrant law because she is about to be primaried by an even crazier Republican “leader” – Arpaio, the local sheriff. This maniac could be the next governor, who could make the current incumbent look like Mary Poppins.
So let’s take a closer look, shall we?
Arpaio, ironically the son of immigrants, has created a catastrophe trying to hunt immigrants on the border. He instructed his civilian “posses” to go out and arrest “aliens”; these people now have concealed-carry powers. But the Department of Homeland Security was forced to step in and order Arpaio to stop using his deputies to hunt immigrants: even though they are federally trained, the implementation has been, in a word, problematic. Meanwhile the Department of Justice is investigating Arpaio for civil rights violations and for illegally targeting minorities; Arpaio refused to cooperate with Justice.
When he isn’t hunting Mexicans, he is hunting his critics. Arpaio is investigating many of his opponents on criminal charges. The FBI is investigating him because he has tried to terrorize his political critics – judges, county managers, a police chief, a state attorney general – by filing corruption charges and lawsuits. He has raided city hall and demanded access to a mayor’s email account. When a county supervisor made the terrible mistake of requesting an audit of the sheriff’s budget, Arpaio retaliated with 200 frivolous criminal charges. Arpaio arrested the editors of a local paper and subpoena’ed the paper as well as the IP addresses of all visitors to the paper’s website, because the paper had criticized Arpaio; a court ruled that the subpoenas were illegal. The DOJ empanelled a grand jury to charge him with abuse of power.
So what about his day job, fighting crime? He began his law-enforcement career in the early 1950s – he will soon turn 78 -- but he is actually a really, really bad law enforcement officer. A newspaper won a Pulitzer for exposing lousy emergency response and lousy law enforcement. He launched the incredibly dangerous process of recruiting volunteer “posses” to do deputy work which requires actual training -- manage search and rescue, run traffic control, execute warrants, and transport prisoners. He is under fire for “clearing” more than 80 percent of his cases without proper investigation, including three young girls who were raped. His efforts have had no effect whatsoever on recidivism. A petition to recall Arpaio from office was launched, although it failed.
Likewise his handling of detainees has gotten him in very serious trouble. His county has had to pay over $40 million to the families of inmates who died in custody, despite efforts by Arpaio’s office to destroy evidence; some of his victims were disabled. His deputies have a reputation for beating inmates. He reduced food supplies to inmates, put them in tents in the Arizona sun, put them in chain gangs, and put them in pink underwear; he then sold the pink underwear as a sideline, misused the funds, and refused all external oversight. Arpaio’s jail lost accreditation several times for lying about compliance and for violating health and safety rules. He has been sued more than 2000 times regarding prison conditions.
And then, the webcam. A judge slapped down Arpaio and fined him, for putting video of pretrial detainees on the internet, in violation of the constitutional protections regarding due process. “We fail to see how turning pretrial detainees into the unwilling objects of the latest reality show serves any of these legitimate goals…Inmates . . . are not like animals in a zoo to be filmed and photographed at will by the public. “ Even the Supreme Court, which lurches further to the right every year, wouldn’t back up Arpaio.
And this guy could be governor. In total charge of a huge chunk of the U.S.-Mexico border, including most of the border areas which are not blocked by the Rio Grande. And he will have total executive power, total veto power, total control over all state forces, everybody who has a gun. To continue to terrorize anyone with brown skin, or anyone in the state who questions his illegal behaviour.
So the Republicans want to remove our voting rights, steal elections, throw innocent people in jail, and hand the state of Arizona over to an incompetent, violent thug. This is kind of stuff we hanged Saddam Hussein for.
Now does everybody get it?
The Democrats are on a roll, finally figuring out how to shame Republicans into ending their filibusters. But that’s not why they need to push immigration reform.
Right now people are really steamed about the Arizona “Papers Please” law. But that’s not why to push reform, either.
Right now other states – Texas, Ohio, Utah – are thinking about passing similar laws; soon there could be whole swaths of the country where it’s pretty much illegal to be brown. But that’s not why we need to move on this.
The reason we need to do this now is that the “arrest everybody who’s brown” tactic could have disastrous consequences on election day. The threat of widespread arrests based on skin color is nothing short of vote suppression: how many Latinos are going to stay away from the polls in November just to avoid getting thrown in jail by all those cops standing around at the polls? What could stop the cops from simply arresting all the Mexicans at your local polling place, and only letting the white folks vote? Could this asinine law be the element that allows McCain to keep his job until he’s 80?
That’s the real reason why we need immigration reform.
Q. What legal impediment is there, to stop a crooked, irresponsible sheriff like Arpaio from simply throwing every Mexican in jail on election day, so that only whites can vote, and then letting all the detainees back out again the next day?
A. Nothing at all. It is now perfectly legal for white Republicans to steal the election.
The Republicans know full well that passage of serious immigration reform would be really bad for them but great for everyone else: Lindsey Graham, who earlier was screeching at Obama for not moving fast enough on immigration reform, is now screeching that the Democrats must STOP pushing it or he will stonewall everything else going through the Senate.
As the Washington Monthly pointed out, the Immigration Reform Law Institute is the group which is taking credit for writing the Arizona bill, and is now urging the legislature to amend the bill and make it easier for police to concoct legal pretexts for harassing innocent brown people, to include city rules such as having a car up on blocks (they also admitted that the law as originally written was a racial-profiling law by passing a no-profiling amendment). The guy spearheading that amendment effort is the same guy who formerly was Chairman of the Kansas Republican Party, where he took credit for the vote-caging effort there – the entirely illegal effort to get blacks and Mexicans thrown off the voter rolls if they fail to answer a registered-mail verification, something they didn’t bother to do in white areas.
Gee, can anybody see the pattern here?
Republicans go after minorities in Kansas, to stop them from voting Democratic.
Republicans throw Arizona Mexicans in jail, to stop them from showing their faces on the street so they can vote Democratic.
Republican vote suppression in Ohio, stop voters from voting Democratic, steal the 2004 presidential election.
Illegal Republican voter suppression in black and Hispanic sections of Florida, stop voters from voting Democratic, steal the 2000 presidential election.
Republicans go all out to destroy any African-American voter registration effort, stop them from voting Democratic.
Republican hissy fits when one alleged “Black Panther” shows up at a polling place with a “stick” – screeching “Hey, he’s only a Democrat, only Republicans are allowed to commit voter suppression!!”
Republicans declare war on union groups, because they organize Democratic voters.
Republicans declare war on lawyers and push for tort reform, because they organize Democratic voters.
Republicans bitterly resist all efforts to reform the electoral college, because the current system artificially suppresses the power of Democratic voters, by disproportionately emphasizing the voices of the Republicans of the Great Plains.
Republicans shamelessly pushing Voter ID laws, voter purging laws, ex-con disenfranchisement laws.
Republicans putting scumbags like Katherine Harris in charge of voting laws.
Republicans jamming the phone lines of Democratic organizers to suppress voter turnout in New Hampshire.
Republicans illegally registering voters using pro-marijuana petitions.
Republicans suppressing voter representation in Democratic districts by sending fake census forms so the real forms don’t get filled out.
Republicans undertaking such a widespread vote suppression effort in the Virginia gubernatorial race that the FBI had to step in.
Republicans pushing vote suppression in the 2008 race, using caging, purging and delays a polling places to stop people from voting for Obama in Georgia, Michigan, Ohio, Montana, Wisconsin.
The Republicans seemingly can’t stop them from doing incredibly stupid things, pissing off Mexicans with their stance on Sotomayor and their immigration policies, pissing off blacks with their 19th-century attitudes toward Obama, pissing off women with their antediluvian policies on abortion, possing off young people with their fiscal policies, pissing off gays…They know that soon they will only have adult white men, who currently comprise only about 24 percent of America, and dropping. They know that the Republican party is doomed, for demographic reasons, and all they can do is try to delay the inevitable, with illegal voter suppression. So we will see more and more of it.
And what happens when Obama passes immigration reform, and gives 11 million Mexicans a clear path toward becoming citizens…and voting?
In the meantime there are one or two problems with that law, that will get it overturned.
It empowers virtually any government employee to jail almost any citizen without cause.
It mandates that government employees MUST pursue illegals.
It doesn’t properly define who can invoke these powers, or what qualification or training is required.
It will require that some people incriminate themselves.
It provides for entrapment.
It mandates the payment of court costs without due process.
It violates civil procedure by imposing costs on defendants without court involvement.
It eradicates the doctrine that any suspect is innocent until proven guilty.
It imposes penalties on anyone who brings another person into their home or car, or even invites them to Arizona.
It virtually assures that innocent people will be detained, injured or killed.
It mandates transfer of state detainees to federal facilities without federal input, and makes no provision for federal refusal to implement that mandate.
It essentially makes brown skin into probable cause.
The worst, most incompetent lawyer in the world could get this overturned in any federal court. Not only should the law be overturned, but whichever moron wrote it should be disbarred for criminal incompetence. In years to come, they will use this asinine law as a pop quiz in freshman-level Constitutional Law -- okay kids, the student who finds the most errors gets an A!
So why did the governor sign this piece of garbage?
According to Mother Jones, that crazy Arizona governor signed that crazy Arizona immigrant law because she is about to be primaried by an even crazier Republican “leader” – Arpaio, the local sheriff. This maniac could be the next governor, who could make the current incumbent look like Mary Poppins.
So let’s take a closer look, shall we?
Arpaio, ironically the son of immigrants, has created a catastrophe trying to hunt immigrants on the border. He instructed his civilian “posses” to go out and arrest “aliens”; these people now have concealed-carry powers. But the Department of Homeland Security was forced to step in and order Arpaio to stop using his deputies to hunt immigrants: even though they are federally trained, the implementation has been, in a word, problematic. Meanwhile the Department of Justice is investigating Arpaio for civil rights violations and for illegally targeting minorities; Arpaio refused to cooperate with Justice.
When he isn’t hunting Mexicans, he is hunting his critics. Arpaio is investigating many of his opponents on criminal charges. The FBI is investigating him because he has tried to terrorize his political critics – judges, county managers, a police chief, a state attorney general – by filing corruption charges and lawsuits. He has raided city hall and demanded access to a mayor’s email account. When a county supervisor made the terrible mistake of requesting an audit of the sheriff’s budget, Arpaio retaliated with 200 frivolous criminal charges. Arpaio arrested the editors of a local paper and subpoena’ed the paper as well as the IP addresses of all visitors to the paper’s website, because the paper had criticized Arpaio; a court ruled that the subpoenas were illegal. The DOJ empanelled a grand jury to charge him with abuse of power.
So what about his day job, fighting crime? He began his law-enforcement career in the early 1950s – he will soon turn 78 -- but he is actually a really, really bad law enforcement officer. A newspaper won a Pulitzer for exposing lousy emergency response and lousy law enforcement. He launched the incredibly dangerous process of recruiting volunteer “posses” to do deputy work which requires actual training -- manage search and rescue, run traffic control, execute warrants, and transport prisoners. He is under fire for “clearing” more than 80 percent of his cases without proper investigation, including three young girls who were raped. His efforts have had no effect whatsoever on recidivism. A petition to recall Arpaio from office was launched, although it failed.
Likewise his handling of detainees has gotten him in very serious trouble. His county has had to pay over $40 million to the families of inmates who died in custody, despite efforts by Arpaio’s office to destroy evidence; some of his victims were disabled. His deputies have a reputation for beating inmates. He reduced food supplies to inmates, put them in tents in the Arizona sun, put them in chain gangs, and put them in pink underwear; he then sold the pink underwear as a sideline, misused the funds, and refused all external oversight. Arpaio’s jail lost accreditation several times for lying about compliance and for violating health and safety rules. He has been sued more than 2000 times regarding prison conditions.
And then, the webcam. A judge slapped down Arpaio and fined him, for putting video of pretrial detainees on the internet, in violation of the constitutional protections regarding due process. “We fail to see how turning pretrial detainees into the unwilling objects of the latest reality show serves any of these legitimate goals…Inmates . . . are not like animals in a zoo to be filmed and photographed at will by the public. “ Even the Supreme Court, which lurches further to the right every year, wouldn’t back up Arpaio.
And this guy could be governor. In total charge of a huge chunk of the U.S.-Mexico border, including most of the border areas which are not blocked by the Rio Grande. And he will have total executive power, total veto power, total control over all state forces, everybody who has a gun. To continue to terrorize anyone with brown skin, or anyone in the state who questions his illegal behaviour.
So the Republicans want to remove our voting rights, steal elections, throw innocent people in jail, and hand the state of Arizona over to an incompetent, violent thug. This is kind of stuff we hanged Saddam Hussein for.
Now does everybody get it?
Tuesday, 27 April 2010
Mexican ho’s and vaginal probes!
Declare war on Arizona in ten easy steps!
Proceed to your local used-car dealership, and purchase the biggest, oldest car you can find. Cadillacs, old Lincolns, perhaps a really old T-Bird or Monte Carlo.
Proceed to your local body shop, and have the car lowered six inches down to the ground, and painted a cheery pastel color – yellow, pink, lavender, baby blue, minty green. While you’re there, put in an eight-track player. Fuzzy dice if you want to show off.
Next, the hat shop for ten sombreros.
Next, the used music store, for an old eight-track of Abraxas by Santana. Track three, Oye Como Va.
Next, the dentist, to cap one tooth, and only one, in gold.
Next, the drugstore for an eyebrow pencil. Draw a teeny mustache. Girls, you too!
Ladies, into your closets to dress up like cheap ho’s.
Now, load ten folks, all duded up in their hats and mustaches and ho-gear, into the car. Bring no identification whatsoever. Santana up to 11. Sing along, badly.
Point the car toward Arizona. Pick a town. Ride up and down the street in front of police headquarters. Make them arrest you. Take pictures with your cell phone and send them to Rachel Maddow.
Lather, rinse, repeat until election day.
Better yet, get Minnesota to pass the same law to hunt down people who look...Canadian. "What's all the fuss aboooooot, Officer??"
Even better – since these circus clowns also passed a law essentially saying that Obama is an illegal alien, send Obama down there and dare them to arrest him. Unlike those addle-brained Barney Fifes down in the desert who excel only in roughing up defenceless people, the Secret Service actually knows how to use their weapons on armed targets.
And aren’t these the same right-wing yahoos who were out on the Mall with their guns a few days ago, screeching about how overly intrusive the government is, in Obama’s dreaded police state? And now they want the Gestapo pulling people off the streets to check their papers….oh, right, how silly of me. Freedom for white people, Gestapo scrutiny for brown people. My bad! Meanwhile their buddies have passed an unbelievably draconian abortion law in Oklahoma – one minute they want Big Gummint off their backs, and the next thing they are sticking probes up our vaginas.
The GOP is writing Obama’s ads for him: the masturbating SEC inspectors, the chicken to the doctor, arresting Latinos for “driving while brown”, McConnell getting caught spewing dishonest talking points about finance reform, the Oklahoma vagina probes….
And you have to wonder why they’re screaming about this. Illegal immigrants pay more into social security and taxes than they cost in services – it’s a net gain. And the only jobs they’re taking away are coming from blacks and the uneducated who already can’t find jobs anyway. And cities with large immigrant populations see their crime rates drop, particularly since all the Mexican gang violence has been kept on the southern side of the border. The main danger of illegal immigration is to the immigrants themselves; slavery, prostitution and other exploitation, and death by exposure in the desert. So anybody who is ready to yell and scream and fight and kill over this issue is motivated by sheer racism.
Fortunately, the law will not survive in court.
First, it’s not just the Arizona state police who can grab “suspicious” people without a warrant. Any employee of any local government not only can do it, but is required to do it. So the local kindergarten teacher, or the little old lady who prints out the paychecks for the town council, can strap on a gun at quitting time and go a-huntin’ fer Mexicans. The law is so vague that anything that could qualify as a “political subdivision”, which could include everything from a condo association to the local PTA, is not only empowered but required to go catch the bad guys. None of these “officials” can be prohibited from obtaining immigration status information, which could require detainees to incriminate themselves, which has already been ruled unconstitutional. Also, the law says that the police are now allowed to entrap employers, yet another clause which could cause the courts to strike down the law.
Second, the law requires that a violator pay court and attorney costs plus penalties; no commutations allowed. And if a policeman is sued, his attorney fees could be passed to the detainee for payment. This is very likely to violate proper procedure for civil trial, so there’s another court challenge.
Third, any person who is physically in the state of Arizona without an ID is technically in violation of the law; likewise, anyone seeking employment, or working, in Arizona. If you carry someone without an ID in your car, or let them in your house, or invite them to visit you from outside Arizona, you could go to jail and lose your car to the impound lot.
Incidentally, if you have thousands of “officials” out on the streets and highways hunting Mexicans, many with inadequate or improper training, then there are only about a hundred ways to go wrong: people getting hurt or killed, procedures being followed incorrectly, detainees thrown into local rather than federal facilities, “officials” being dragged into court to explain what their reasonable suspicion was, other than brown skin….So, yeah, there’s even more lawsuit activity there.
Even if the law surmounts those three problem areas in court, the law can still be killed easily by Obama. Only the federal government can verify – “yes, you’re legal” – according to the law. So once you’re detained, you must be handed over to federal custody – all Obama needs to do is refuse to accept the detainees or rule on their status, and the law is blown away. These idiots want to send folks out with guns to round up anybody with a vowel at the end of their name and put them in some sort of desert gulag, but they mandated that it must be a federal gulag – notwithstanding the fact that the guy who would have to administer the aforementioned gulag, Obama, says he doesn’t like the law and is very unlikely to cooperate.
So what will happen first, having the law overturned in court, or the first Mexican getting killed by some buckaroo? Particularly given the toxic environment down there: the governor signs a concealed-carry bill which greatly increases the odds on some perfectly legal Mexican getting plugged for no reason, Sheriff Arpaio’s effective declaration of martial law extends to using police powers to terrorize his political opponents (flaming radicals like the mayor, the police chief, the state attorney general), and one Congressman is already getting death threats, probably because his name ends in a vowel.
Proceed to your local used-car dealership, and purchase the biggest, oldest car you can find. Cadillacs, old Lincolns, perhaps a really old T-Bird or Monte Carlo.
Proceed to your local body shop, and have the car lowered six inches down to the ground, and painted a cheery pastel color – yellow, pink, lavender, baby blue, minty green. While you’re there, put in an eight-track player. Fuzzy dice if you want to show off.
Next, the hat shop for ten sombreros.
Next, the used music store, for an old eight-track of Abraxas by Santana. Track three, Oye Como Va.
Next, the dentist, to cap one tooth, and only one, in gold.
Next, the drugstore for an eyebrow pencil. Draw a teeny mustache. Girls, you too!
Ladies, into your closets to dress up like cheap ho’s.
Now, load ten folks, all duded up in their hats and mustaches and ho-gear, into the car. Bring no identification whatsoever. Santana up to 11. Sing along, badly.
Point the car toward Arizona. Pick a town. Ride up and down the street in front of police headquarters. Make them arrest you. Take pictures with your cell phone and send them to Rachel Maddow.
Lather, rinse, repeat until election day.
Better yet, get Minnesota to pass the same law to hunt down people who look...Canadian. "What's all the fuss aboooooot, Officer??"
Even better – since these circus clowns also passed a law essentially saying that Obama is an illegal alien, send Obama down there and dare them to arrest him. Unlike those addle-brained Barney Fifes down in the desert who excel only in roughing up defenceless people, the Secret Service actually knows how to use their weapons on armed targets.
And aren’t these the same right-wing yahoos who were out on the Mall with their guns a few days ago, screeching about how overly intrusive the government is, in Obama’s dreaded police state? And now they want the Gestapo pulling people off the streets to check their papers….oh, right, how silly of me. Freedom for white people, Gestapo scrutiny for brown people. My bad! Meanwhile their buddies have passed an unbelievably draconian abortion law in Oklahoma – one minute they want Big Gummint off their backs, and the next thing they are sticking probes up our vaginas.
The GOP is writing Obama’s ads for him: the masturbating SEC inspectors, the chicken to the doctor, arresting Latinos for “driving while brown”, McConnell getting caught spewing dishonest talking points about finance reform, the Oklahoma vagina probes….
And you have to wonder why they’re screaming about this. Illegal immigrants pay more into social security and taxes than they cost in services – it’s a net gain. And the only jobs they’re taking away are coming from blacks and the uneducated who already can’t find jobs anyway. And cities with large immigrant populations see their crime rates drop, particularly since all the Mexican gang violence has been kept on the southern side of the border. The main danger of illegal immigration is to the immigrants themselves; slavery, prostitution and other exploitation, and death by exposure in the desert. So anybody who is ready to yell and scream and fight and kill over this issue is motivated by sheer racism.
Fortunately, the law will not survive in court.
First, it’s not just the Arizona state police who can grab “suspicious” people without a warrant. Any employee of any local government not only can do it, but is required to do it. So the local kindergarten teacher, or the little old lady who prints out the paychecks for the town council, can strap on a gun at quitting time and go a-huntin’ fer Mexicans. The law is so vague that anything that could qualify as a “political subdivision”, which could include everything from a condo association to the local PTA, is not only empowered but required to go catch the bad guys. None of these “officials” can be prohibited from obtaining immigration status information, which could require detainees to incriminate themselves, which has already been ruled unconstitutional. Also, the law says that the police are now allowed to entrap employers, yet another clause which could cause the courts to strike down the law.
Second, the law requires that a violator pay court and attorney costs plus penalties; no commutations allowed. And if a policeman is sued, his attorney fees could be passed to the detainee for payment. This is very likely to violate proper procedure for civil trial, so there’s another court challenge.
Third, any person who is physically in the state of Arizona without an ID is technically in violation of the law; likewise, anyone seeking employment, or working, in Arizona. If you carry someone without an ID in your car, or let them in your house, or invite them to visit you from outside Arizona, you could go to jail and lose your car to the impound lot.
Incidentally, if you have thousands of “officials” out on the streets and highways hunting Mexicans, many with inadequate or improper training, then there are only about a hundred ways to go wrong: people getting hurt or killed, procedures being followed incorrectly, detainees thrown into local rather than federal facilities, “officials” being dragged into court to explain what their reasonable suspicion was, other than brown skin….So, yeah, there’s even more lawsuit activity there.
Even if the law surmounts those three problem areas in court, the law can still be killed easily by Obama. Only the federal government can verify – “yes, you’re legal” – according to the law. So once you’re detained, you must be handed over to federal custody – all Obama needs to do is refuse to accept the detainees or rule on their status, and the law is blown away. These idiots want to send folks out with guns to round up anybody with a vowel at the end of their name and put them in some sort of desert gulag, but they mandated that it must be a federal gulag – notwithstanding the fact that the guy who would have to administer the aforementioned gulag, Obama, says he doesn’t like the law and is very unlikely to cooperate.
So what will happen first, having the law overturned in court, or the first Mexican getting killed by some buckaroo? Particularly given the toxic environment down there: the governor signs a concealed-carry bill which greatly increases the odds on some perfectly legal Mexican getting plugged for no reason, Sheriff Arpaio’s effective declaration of martial law extends to using police powers to terrorize his political opponents (flaming radicals like the mayor, the police chief, the state attorney general), and one Congressman is already getting death threats, probably because his name ends in a vowel.
Sunday, 25 April 2010
Graham complains when Obama did what he told him to do: move forward on immigration
Lindsey Graham is throwing a titanic hissy fit, to the effect that he must stop bilateral talks on climate change, because the Democratic effort of immigration is a “cynical ploy” which undermines the legislative process.
The problem?
Graham was working on immigration with Schumer and the other Democrats. In March he even complained that Obama wasn’t moving forward fast enough on it. "At the end of the day, the president needs to step it up a little bit.”
So Obama’s team does exactly what Graham said he should do. Cue the hissy fit.
Which tells us what we already knew: this has nothing to do with immigration, and everything to do with peeing all over Obama no matter what he does.
The problem?
Graham was working on immigration with Schumer and the other Democrats. In March he even complained that Obama wasn’t moving forward fast enough on it. "At the end of the day, the president needs to step it up a little bit.”
So Obama’s team does exactly what Graham said he should do. Cue the hissy fit.
Which tells us what we already knew: this has nothing to do with immigration, and everything to do with peeing all over Obama no matter what he does.
Sunday, 9 August 2009
time for hardball?
Even before Obama was elected, folks like Pelosi said we weren't going to spend the next five years documenting the crimes of the Bush administration and putting people in jail. The aim was to move beyond the bitterness of the Bush era and seek bipartisanship.
Well, Obama extended the hand of bipartisanship to the Republicans, and they chopped it off with a fucking axe, didn't they?
So perhaps it's time to rethink the issue of the Bush era crimes. If the Republicans don't want to spend the next year building a creditable health care system, how would they like to spend it watching the capos of the Bush crime family dragged before Senate committees to testify? And then off to jail?
Just thinking here....
Well, Obama extended the hand of bipartisanship to the Republicans, and they chopped it off with a fucking axe, didn't they?
So perhaps it's time to rethink the issue of the Bush era crimes. If the Republicans don't want to spend the next year building a creditable health care system, how would they like to spend it watching the capos of the Bush crime family dragged before Senate committees to testify? And then off to jail?
Just thinking here....
Wednesday, 5 August 2009
Pennsylvania shooter was another Obama hater
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/greg-mitchell/media-ignore-pittsburgh-k_b_251797.html
So the wingnuts have committed a number of insane murders (two in Pennsylvania alone), killed an abortion doctor, sent goon squads to attack Congressmen who dare to talk health care and hang them in effigy, launched thousands of death threats against their "illegitimate" president, screamed secession, openly promised attacks unless the health reform package conforms to anti-abortion views, launched national tea-party riots on two occasions...and they're loading up with guns and ammo.
But it's Obama we're supposed to be worried about.
So the wingnuts have committed a number of insane murders (two in Pennsylvania alone), killed an abortion doctor, sent goon squads to attack Congressmen who dare to talk health care and hang them in effigy, launched thousands of death threats against their "illegitimate" president, screamed secession, openly promised attacks unless the health reform package conforms to anti-abortion views, launched national tea-party riots on two occasions...and they're loading up with guns and ammo.
But it's Obama we're supposed to be worried about.
Saturday, 11 July 2009
Sotomayor attacker has long record of frivolous suits
A classic from Slate
http://www.slate.com/id/2222087/
The New Haven firefighter is no stranger to employment disputes.
By Dahlia Lithwick
Posted Friday, July 10, 2009, at 6:50 PM ET
Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee have announced that Frank Ricci, the firefighter who recently prevailed in his "reverse discrimination" lawsuit against the city of New Haven, Conn., will testify at Sonia Sotomayor's confirmation hearings. Ricci has become a sort of folk hero for white men everywhere, having dared to stand up against the evils of affirmative action and race-based employment preferences. Next week, he will be called on to make the point, as David Paul Kuhn put it, that Sotomayor, for all her talk of empathy and the real-world impact of judicial decisions, "demonstrated no empathy for the 'real-world consequences' of affirmative action on Ricci."
Ricci is invariably painted as a reluctant standard-bearer; a hardworking man driven to litigation only when his dreams of promotion were shattered by a system that persecutes white men. This is the narrative we will hear next week, but it somewhat oversimplifies Ricci's actual employment story. For instance, it's not precisely true, as this one account would have it, that Frank Ricci "never once [sought] special treatment for his dyslexia challenge." In point of fact, Ricci sued over it.
According to local newspapers, Ricci filed his first lawsuit against the city of New Haven in 1995, at the ripe old age of 20, for failing to hire him as a firefighter. That January, the Hartford Chronicle reported that Ricci sued, saying "he was not hired because he is dyslexic." The complaint in that suit, filed in federal court, alleged that the city's failure to hire Ricci because of his dyslexia violated the Americans with Disabilities Act. Frank Ricci was one of 795 candidates interviewed for 40 jobs. According to his complaint, the reason he was not hired was that he disclosed his dyslexia in an interview. That case was settled in 1997 with a confidential settlement in which Ricci withdrew his lawsuit in exchange for a job with the fire department and $11,143 in attorney's fees.
In 1998, Ricci was talking about filing lawsuits again, this time over a dispute with his new employer, Middletown's South Fire District—which had hired him in August of 1997. According to a Hartford Courant report of Aug. 11, 1998, Ricci was dismissed from the Middletown fire department after only eight months. He promptly appealed his dismissal, claiming that fire officials had retaliated against him for conducting an investigation into the department's response to a controversial fire. A story in the Hartford Courant dated Aug. 9, 1997, has Ricci vowing "to pursue this to the fullest extent of the law."
In August of 1998, a state Department of Labor investigation cleared Chief Wayne S. Bartolotta of any wrongdoing in the firing. The Aug. 3, 1998, letter from the state Department of Labor indicated that the case was closed with a finding of no violation. "After a thorough investigation, it was determined that the South Fire District did not discriminate against Mr. Ricci." Ricci's response? According to the Courant, Ricci contended "Their decision was political, it has nothing to do with who was right and who was wrong." He told the paper he would "pursue the matter in civil court."
Ricci also tried to discredit his former boss, Chief Bartolotta, by disparaging his professional credentials. His fight over access to Bartolotta's professional training records was resolved between the two of them a week before the matter was slated to be taken up with the state Freedom of Information Commission, according to a Jan. 13, 1998, report in the Hartford Courant.
Eventually, Ricci made his way back to the New Haven Fire Department, where he famously aced his promotions test, then sued, yet again, in 2004.
Ultimately, there are two ways to frame Frank Ricci's penchant for filing employment discrimination complaints: Perhaps he was repeatedly victimized by a cruel cadre of employers, first for his dyslexia, then again for his role as a whistle-blower, and then a third time for just being white. If that is so, we should all be deeply grateful for the robust civil rights laws that protect Americans from unfair discrimination in the workplace. I look forward to hearing Republican Sen. John Cornyn's version of that speech next week.
The other way to look at Frank Ricci is as a serial plaintiff—one who reacts to professional slights and setbacks by filing suit, threatening to file suit, and more or less complaining his way up the chain of command. That's not the typical GOP heartthrob, but I look forward to hearing Sen. Cornyn's version of that speech next week as well.
When Frank Ricci testifies against Judge Sotomayor, it will be worth recalling that under any other set of facts he would have looked, to his GOP sponsors, like the kind of unscrupulous professional litigant Rush Limbaugh lives to savage. Is America's conservative movement really ready for an anti-affirmative action hero who has repeatedly relied on the government to intervene on his behalf to win him—and help him keep—a government job?
http://www.slate.com/id/2222087/
The New Haven firefighter is no stranger to employment disputes.
By Dahlia Lithwick
Posted Friday, July 10, 2009, at 6:50 PM ET
Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee have announced that Frank Ricci, the firefighter who recently prevailed in his "reverse discrimination" lawsuit against the city of New Haven, Conn., will testify at Sonia Sotomayor's confirmation hearings. Ricci has become a sort of folk hero for white men everywhere, having dared to stand up against the evils of affirmative action and race-based employment preferences. Next week, he will be called on to make the point, as David Paul Kuhn put it, that Sotomayor, for all her talk of empathy and the real-world impact of judicial decisions, "demonstrated no empathy for the 'real-world consequences' of affirmative action on Ricci."
Ricci is invariably painted as a reluctant standard-bearer; a hardworking man driven to litigation only when his dreams of promotion were shattered by a system that persecutes white men. This is the narrative we will hear next week, but it somewhat oversimplifies Ricci's actual employment story. For instance, it's not precisely true, as this one account would have it, that Frank Ricci "never once [sought] special treatment for his dyslexia challenge." In point of fact, Ricci sued over it.
According to local newspapers, Ricci filed his first lawsuit against the city of New Haven in 1995, at the ripe old age of 20, for failing to hire him as a firefighter. That January, the Hartford Chronicle reported that Ricci sued, saying "he was not hired because he is dyslexic." The complaint in that suit, filed in federal court, alleged that the city's failure to hire Ricci because of his dyslexia violated the Americans with Disabilities Act. Frank Ricci was one of 795 candidates interviewed for 40 jobs. According to his complaint, the reason he was not hired was that he disclosed his dyslexia in an interview. That case was settled in 1997 with a confidential settlement in which Ricci withdrew his lawsuit in exchange for a job with the fire department and $11,143 in attorney's fees.
In 1998, Ricci was talking about filing lawsuits again, this time over a dispute with his new employer, Middletown's South Fire District—which had hired him in August of 1997. According to a Hartford Courant report of Aug. 11, 1998, Ricci was dismissed from the Middletown fire department after only eight months. He promptly appealed his dismissal, claiming that fire officials had retaliated against him for conducting an investigation into the department's response to a controversial fire. A story in the Hartford Courant dated Aug. 9, 1997, has Ricci vowing "to pursue this to the fullest extent of the law."
In August of 1998, a state Department of Labor investigation cleared Chief Wayne S. Bartolotta of any wrongdoing in the firing. The Aug. 3, 1998, letter from the state Department of Labor indicated that the case was closed with a finding of no violation. "After a thorough investigation, it was determined that the South Fire District did not discriminate against Mr. Ricci." Ricci's response? According to the Courant, Ricci contended "Their decision was political, it has nothing to do with who was right and who was wrong." He told the paper he would "pursue the matter in civil court."
Ricci also tried to discredit his former boss, Chief Bartolotta, by disparaging his professional credentials. His fight over access to Bartolotta's professional training records was resolved between the two of them a week before the matter was slated to be taken up with the state Freedom of Information Commission, according to a Jan. 13, 1998, report in the Hartford Courant.
Eventually, Ricci made his way back to the New Haven Fire Department, where he famously aced his promotions test, then sued, yet again, in 2004.
Ultimately, there are two ways to frame Frank Ricci's penchant for filing employment discrimination complaints: Perhaps he was repeatedly victimized by a cruel cadre of employers, first for his dyslexia, then again for his role as a whistle-blower, and then a third time for just being white. If that is so, we should all be deeply grateful for the robust civil rights laws that protect Americans from unfair discrimination in the workplace. I look forward to hearing Republican Sen. John Cornyn's version of that speech next week.
The other way to look at Frank Ricci is as a serial plaintiff—one who reacts to professional slights and setbacks by filing suit, threatening to file suit, and more or less complaining his way up the chain of command. That's not the typical GOP heartthrob, but I look forward to hearing Sen. Cornyn's version of that speech next week as well.
When Frank Ricci testifies against Judge Sotomayor, it will be worth recalling that under any other set of facts he would have looked, to his GOP sponsors, like the kind of unscrupulous professional litigant Rush Limbaugh lives to savage. Is America's conservative movement really ready for an anti-affirmative action hero who has repeatedly relied on the government to intervene on his behalf to win him—and help him keep—a government job?
Saturday, 30 May 2009
Guess who got La Raza awards? Boehner and Lindsey Graham
http://www.nclr.org/section/events/capital_awards/cap_awards_2005
I guess they must be racists too.
I guess they must be racists too.
Friday, 29 May 2009
Who is stupider, Limbaugh or Liddy?
Limbaugh comparing Sotomayor to a Klan leader?
"Not only does she lack the often discussed appropriate judicial temperament, it's worse than that. She brings a form of bigotry and racism to the court. I don't care, we're not supposed to say it, we're supposed to pretend it didn't happen, we're supposed to look at other things but it's the elephant in the room. The real question here that needs to be asked and nobody on our side from a columnist to a TV commentator to anybody in our party has the guts to ask, how can a president nominate such a candidate? And how can a party get behind such a candidate? That's what would be asked if somebody were foolish enough to nominate David Duke or pick somebody even less offensive. It is asked."
Or Liddy?
"Let's hope that the key conferences aren't when [Sotomayor]'s menstruating or something, or just before she's going to menstruate. That would really be bad. Lord knows what we would get then."
The faces of the "new" GOP!
"Not only does she lack the often discussed appropriate judicial temperament, it's worse than that. She brings a form of bigotry and racism to the court. I don't care, we're not supposed to say it, we're supposed to pretend it didn't happen, we're supposed to look at other things but it's the elephant in the room. The real question here that needs to be asked and nobody on our side from a columnist to a TV commentator to anybody in our party has the guts to ask, how can a president nominate such a candidate? And how can a party get behind such a candidate? That's what would be asked if somebody were foolish enough to nominate David Duke or pick somebody even less offensive. It is asked."
Or Liddy?
"Let's hope that the key conferences aren't when [Sotomayor]'s menstruating or something, or just before she's going to menstruate. That would really be bad. Lord knows what we would get then."
The faces of the "new" GOP!
Sotomayor persuades GOP judge to side with police
http://www.doublex.com/section/news-politics/sotomayor-sides-cops
So much for the empathic bleeding-heart liberal meme.
So much for the empathic bleeding-heart liberal meme.
Thursday, 28 May 2009
NEW SCARY QUOTES FROM SOTOMAYOR!!!
Not only do state-court judges possess the power to "make" common law, but they have the immense power to shape the States' constitutions as well.
The judges of inferior courts often "make law," since the precedent of the highest court does not cover every situation, and not every case is reviewed.
When I get a case about discrimination, I have to think about people in my own family who suffered discrimination because of their ethnic background or because of religion or because of gender. And I do take that into account.
OH. MY. GOD!!!
...Fooled ya! The quotes are from Supreme Court Justices Antonin Scalia and Samuel Alito, heroes of the loony right.
Hat tip to HuffPo.
The judges of inferior courts often "make law," since the precedent of the highest court does not cover every situation, and not every case is reviewed.
When I get a case about discrimination, I have to think about people in my own family who suffered discrimination because of their ethnic background or because of religion or because of gender. And I do take that into account.
OH. MY. GOD!!!
...Fooled ya! The quotes are from Supreme Court Justices Antonin Scalia and Samuel Alito, heroes of the loony right.
Hat tip to HuffPo.
So Palin, Steele, Jindal weren't affirmative action picks?
For months now GOP leaders have been hyperventilating about the need to appeal to women and minorities, in part by putting forward laughably unqualified airheads like Palin and Steele forward as the next generation of leaders.
But then Obama finds a completely qualified Latina, and that's affirmative action run amuck, right?
And that's just the last few months -- keep going back and you'll read the touching life stories of Clarence Thomas, Harriet Miers, Alberto Gonzalez, all of whom were appallingly unfit for the posts for which they were nominated....
The few times Republicans do hire competent women and minorities, they ignore and humiliate them -- Christine Whitman, Condi Rice, Colin Powell...Too uppity.
But then Obama finds a completely qualified Latina, and that's affirmative action run amuck, right?
And that's just the last few months -- keep going back and you'll read the touching life stories of Clarence Thomas, Harriet Miers, Alberto Gonzalez, all of whom were appallingly unfit for the posts for which they were nominated....
The few times Republicans do hire competent women and minorities, they ignore and humiliate them -- Christine Whitman, Condi Rice, Colin Powell...Too uppity.
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