Posts Categorized Politics

Undocumented Immigration On The Wane

In Politics on Sep-3-2010 with
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Undocumented Immigration On The Wane

Again, these strange things called facts get in the way of scary wingnut hate rhetoric.

The number of illegal immigrants entering the United States has plunged by almost two-thirds in the past decade, a dramatic shift after years of growth in the population, according to a new report by the Pew Hispanic Center.

Between 2000 and 2005, an average of 850,000 people a year entered the United States without authorization, according to the report released Wednesday. As the economy plunged into recession between 2007 and 2009, that number fell to 300,000.

Undocumented immigration is not on the rise. Crime is lower, not higher in border states. But if you listen to Fox News, CNN, and even MSNBC you’d never know this is the case. The use of hate and “those other people” (meaning not white) by the Republicans has been going on so darn long I don’t have any clue how they can still get away with it, but alas they do.

Immigration, ACRON, the return of the “new” Black Panthers, the Park 51 Mosque are all non-issues built on a foundation of lies and fear mongering.

A Day In The Life Of Barack Obama

In Culture, Politics on Sep-2-2010 with
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Vanity Fair this month has a long profile of Sarah Palin that is getting a lot of attention but also a really depressing and detailed look at a day in the life of Barack Obama.

At the hour of dawn, in the same southwest-corner, second-floor bedroom of the White House where Abraham Lincoln once slept, the president awakens. On this spring morning, a Wednesday, Barack Obama is alone; his wife, Michelle, is on her way to Mexico City on her first solo foreign trip. He heads upstairs for 45 minutes of weights and cardio in his personal gym, then puts on a dark suit and navy-blue pin-striped tie.

[....]

When Obama arrives in the office this morning, just before 9:30, the first item on his agenda, as always, is a meeting with his chief of staff for a quick rundown of the coming day: “three minutes, four minutes, five minutes—whatever it takes, but you’ve got to make it quick,” Rahm Emanuel says. On its face, the imbalance between time and task is absurd: three, four, five minutes, to sum up the world. Emanuel himself has been up since 5:15, and in his office since before 7:30, when he holds his first meeting with the rest of the senior staff, followed by a second one with the “expanded” staff and the legislative liaisons.

[....]

On this Wednesday, Obama is dealing with the aftermath of a West Virginia coal-mine tragedy, with a vacancy on the Supreme Court, and with the prospect of a new law in Arizona that will give local law-enforcement officers the right to demand identification from anyone they happen to think may be in the country illegally. He is confronting a shortage of disaster-relief funds at the Federal Emergency Management Agency—this, days before the oil-rig catastrophe occurs in the Gulf of Mexico—and later this morning, Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. will testify before Congress about the administration’s latest plans for trying Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other alleged 9/11 conspirators. Also today, the president will nominate a federal appeals-court judge, seven United States attorneys, and six federal marshals, and he will present Garth Brooks with a special “Grammys on the Hill” award for promoting the intellectual property rights of musicians. Tomorrow, Thursday, he will announce a new strategy for the space program; express condolences on the passing of the civil-rights leader Dr. Benjamin Hooks; order hospitals that participate in Medicare or Medicaid not to deny visitation rights on the basis of sexual orientation; release joint income-tax returns showing earnings with Michelle of $5.5 million (most of it from his best-selling books); and travel to Florida for two evening fund-raisers on behalf of the Democratic National Committee.

Who the heck would even want this darn job?

Folding Like A Cheap Suit

In Politics on Aug-28-2010 with
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Via the Washington Post we learn:

With the economy rapidly weakening, some senior Democrats are having second thoughts about raising taxes on the nation’s wealthiest families and are pressing party leaders to consider extending the full array of Bush administration tax cuts, at least through next year.

This rethinking comes barely a month after Democrats trumpeted plans to stage a high-stakes battle over taxes in the final weeks before the November congressional elections.

The Bush tax cuts are set to expire in December. Republicans are pushing to extend them all, while President Obama has forcefully argued that the country cannot afford to keep tax breaks on income over $250,000 a year for families and $200,000 a year for individuals.

But a growing cadre of Democrats–alarmed by evidence that the recovery is losing steam and fearful of wounding conservative Democrats in a tough election year–are advocating a plan that would permanently extend tax cuts benefiting the middle class while renewing breaks for the wealthy through 2011, senior Democratic aides said.

Awesome idea. Extend the Bush/Republican tax cuts that do absolutely nothing to stimulate the economy and de facto cede the argument that tax cuts for the top 2% of Americans grows the economy, get blamed for the deficit costs of those tax cuts, continue the rapid growth in income inequality, leave less money available to invest in job creation projects, and of course demoralize your core base while throwing a bone to people who are never ever ever going to vote for you. Gosh some days it is really hard being a Democrat.

Tell It Like It Is Eugene

In Politics on Aug-27-2010 with
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Gene Robinson of the Washington Post is a Pulitzer Prize winner for a reason:

The majestic grounds of the Lincoln Memorial belong to all Americans—even to egomaniacal talk-show hosts who profit handsomely from stoking fear, resentment and anger. So let me state clearly that Glenn Beck has every right to hold his absurdly titled “Restoring Honor” rally on Saturday.

But the rest of us have every right to call the event what it is: an exercise in self-aggrandizement on a Napoleonic scale. I half-expect Beck to appear before the crowd in a bicorn hat, with one hand tucked into the front of his jacket.

David Broder Has Lost His Mind (Again)

In Opinion, Politics on Aug-26-2010 with
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Via his column today in the Washington Post:

Now that John McCain has taken care of his political business in Arizona, it is time for him to return to Washington and the responsibilities he bears as a leader of the Republican Party and the nation.

Exactly why is he still writing for the Washington Post.

Fact-Checking Boehner’s “Major Economic Address”

In Politics on Aug-25-2010 with
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The Wonk Room at Think Progress rips apart all the factual errors in John Boehner’s (R-OH) “major economic address” he delivered yesterday:

BOEHNER: “Not long after we spoke, he signed a 26 billion dollar ‘stimulus’ spending bill that funnels money to state governments in order to protect government jobs. Even worse, the bill is funded by a new tax hike that makes it more expensive to create jobs in the United States and less expensive to create jobs overseas.”

FACT: Canceling unspent stimulus funds would mean increasing taxes on the middle class, as $55 billion in funding has already been allocated for middle-class tax breaks.

BOEHNER: “We will not solve our fiscal challenges until we cut spending and have real economic growth – and we won’t have real economic growth if we keep raising taxes on small businesses.”

FACT: Does Boehner still think that the employees—including 4,900 teachers in his state—that are still working because of this bill are “special interests”? Also, the “new tax hike” that Boehner references is actually a provision that prevents multinational corporations from claiming domestic tax credits on profits they earned overseas, and thus reduces the incentive to outsource jobs. That bill also reduced the deficit.

BOEHNER: “All this ‘stimulus’ spending has gotten us nowhere, but it comes from somewhere.”

FACT: According to the Congressional Budget Office, the stimulus will save or create up to 3.7 million jobs by the end of September. The Columbus Dispatch noted that 9,500 Ohio construction workers had work in July because of the stimulus; some of this work was in Boehner’s own district.

BOEHNER: “Republicans on the House Budget Committee, led by Congressman Paul Ryan, have already identified $1.3 trillion in specific spending cuts that could be implemented immediately. These are common-sense steps – like canceling unspent ‘stimulus’ and TARP bailout funds.”

FACT: Fewer than two percent of small business in the country would be affected by Obama’s plan to let the Bush tax cuts for the rich expire.

And they have many, many more examples of factual errors so simple to prove he is either a world-class liar or very, very dim witted.

Good Luck With That, Rod

In Politics on Aug-23-2010 with
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Sometimes it is just flat out embarrassing to be from Illinois:

Former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich said Sunday he’s not ruling out a return to politics should federal prosecutors fail to convict him in a second trial on corruption charges.

220 Years Ago Today

In Culture, Politics on Aug-17-2010 with
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Some American named George Washington wrote:

It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people, that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights. For happily the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens, in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.

Washington wrote this in response to a proclamation by a group of Jews in Newport, RI thanking him for visiting their synagogue. Maybe some of our political leaders and “talking heads” that have a problem with a Muslim community center in NYC could learn something from this.

Bloomberg Delivers Stirring Defense Of NYC Mosque

In Culture, Politics on Aug-3-2010 with
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I never thought a speech like this would come from the mayor of New York City, but Bloomberg just knocks it out of the park:

“In the mid-1650s, the small Jewish community living in lower Manhattan petitioned Dutch governor Peter Stuyvesant for the right to build a synagogue, and they were turned down. In 1657, when Stuyvesant also prohibited Quakers from holding meetings, a group of non-Quakers in Queens signed the Flushing Remonstrance, a petition in defense of the right of Quakers and others to freely practice their religion. It was perhaps the first formal political petition for religious freedom in the American colonies, and the organizer was thrown in jail and then banished from New Amsterdam.

“In the 1700s, even as religious freedom took hold in America, Catholics in New York were effectively prohibited from practicing their religion, and priests could be arrested. Largely as a result, the first Catholic parish in New York City was not established until the 1780s, St. Peter’s on Barclay Street, which still stands just one block north of the World Trade Center site, and one block south of the proposed mosque and community center.

“This morning, the city’s Landmark Preservation Commission unanimously voted to extend—not to extend—landmark status to the building on Park Place where the mosque and community center are planned. The decision was based solely on the fact that there was little architectural significance to the building. But with or without landmark designation, there is nothing in the law that would prevent the owners from opening a mosque within the existing building.

“The simple fact is, this building is private property, and the owners have a right to use the building as a house of worship, and the government has no right whatsoever to deny that right. And if it were tried, the courts would almost certainly strike it down as a violation of the U.S. Constitution.

“Whatever you may think of the proposed mosque and community center, lost in the heat of the debate has been a basic question: Should government attempt to deny private citizens the right to build a house of worship on private property based on their particular religion? That may happen in other countries, but we should never allow it to happen here.

“This nation was founded on the principle that the government must never choose between religions or favor one over another. The World Trade Center site will forever hold a special place in our city, in our hearts. But we would be untrue to the best part of ourselves and who we are as New Yorkers and Americans if we said no to a mosque in lower Manhattan.

Salon has much more on this topic as well as how silent Democrats have been on this topic.

Mark Kirk Just “Wasn’t Thinking”

In Politics on Jun-30-2010 with
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As an Illinois resident and political wonk I am watching the Senate race to fill Barack Obama’s former seat closely. It is a painful process to say the least. Yesterday Illinois’ Republican nominee  Mark Kirk has finally stopped running from the press and agreed to hold a press conference to explain away various statements he had made, such as:

Update: Via Chris Cillizza at the Washington Post:

In just the past 48 hours, the Illinois Senate race between state Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias (D) and Rep. Mark Kirk (R) has turned very nasty.

Kirk started the mudslinging with two ads that charge—among other things—that Giannoulias “made risky loans to convicted mobsters”. Giannoulias quickly struck back with a 60-second a detailing Kirk’s repeated misrepresentations of his own military record.(Watch these ads. They are brutal— in a good way.)