Phyllis Schlafly: Bring Back McCarthyism, Limit Immigration

While the "godly folk" riot in Paris, back home in America conservatives who pat themselves on the back for their supposed piety and godliness want to bring back the bad old days of Joesph McCarthy and the reign of terror he conducted through the House Committee on Un-American Activities.  A case in point is the virulently anti-gay, anti-women's rights Phyllis Schlaf'ly who has added virulent anti-Muslim bigotry to her list of hate and horror.   In a column in Wing Nut Daily (my name for World Net Daily) she lets lose with a screed that makes it clear she wants to see Muslims deemed guilty of treason and would be violence until proven innocent.  Right Wing Watch looks at her batshitery.  Here are excerpts (note the double standard for Christofascists):

Eagle Forum founder and Joseph McCarthy admirer Phyllis Schlafly is using the Boston marathon bombings as an excuse to push for the reinstatement of the notorious House Committee on Un-American Activities.

“It would be useful to reinstate the House Committee on Un-American Activities,” Schlafly wrote in a column yesterday, “so we can have a look at those in our midst who may be jihadists, dupes of violent Muslim indoctrination, or (in old Communist lingo) fellow travelers or useful idiots.”
In her column, which she titled, “Are You American 1st or Muslim 1st?,” Schlafly further argues that while it is okay to be a Christian first and American second, Muslims who put faith first should not be allowed in the country.

The Boston bombing crime shows that comprehensive immigration reform should not be only a southern border problem or even just a problem of illegal aliens. It’s also a problem of foreigners who are admitted legally but should never have been admitted, and of others admitted legally on a visa but are not tracked to make sure they depart when their visitor’s time expires, as U.S. law requires.

For starters, why would our government have admitted the Tsarnaev family whose son was named Tamerlan? That should have been a red alert because that is the name of one of the world’s notorious mass murderers, a 14th-century Central Asian warlord named Tamerlan, who killed about 17 million people.

 It would be useful to reinstate the House Committee on Un-American Activities so we can have a look at those in our midst who may be jihadists, dupes of violent Muslim indoctrination, or (in old Communist lingo) fellow travelers or useful idiots.

There is plenty of evidence that legal and illegal immigrants of various nationalities, in contravention of our citizenship pledge, retain their loyalty to the land they came from.

Schlafly’s argument is reminiscent of an incoherent answer that Pat Robertson gave last year to a 700 Club viewer who asked him why he criticized Muslims who put their faith ahead of their nationality when he does the same. Robertson claimed that Muslims are different from Christians because they are “under control of a foreign power.”

Based on Pat Robertson's comment, should Catholics be worried that they could be next on the hit list?  After all, the Vatican is treated as a sovereign nation - Muslims have no comparable nation state controlling them.   Let's get real.  Schlafly and those like her - Robertson, Bryan Fischer, Tony Perkins, members of the KKK, etc. - believe that America belongs to white conservative far right Christians. They'd be happiest if the rest of us simply ceased to exist or were expelled from the country.  I'm sorry, but with ancestors who were in this country since before 1825, I for one are more American than many of Ms. Schlafly's followers. 

Tea Party Refuses to Accept Blame for GOP Losses

By a number of accounts the so-called Tea Party has roughly an 85% overlap with the Christian Right.  Hence why I often refer to the GOP's new base as Christofascist/Tea Party.  These are the folks that secured the GOP nominations for folks like Christine O'Donnell in Delaware, Todd Akin in Missouri, etc., and also pushed the GOP to dwell on abortion, contraception, deporting immigrants, slashing social programs, and other issues that drove a majority of voters into the arms of the Democrats and reelected Barack Obama.  To anyone in touch with objective reality one would think that the Christofascist/Tea Party responsibility for the GOP's drubbing would be obvious.  Yet to these delusional loonies, the losses are all the fault of the so-called party establishment.  The good news for Democrats is that these lunatics of the right have no plan to disappear and, if anything, want to assert themselves even more strongly over the GOP's future.  The Washington Times has an article that reviews to alternate universe of the Tea Party crowd.  Here are highlights:

Tea party leaders say they refuse to be the scapegoats for the drubbing Republicans took on Election Day, claiming it was the party establishment — not their insurgent movement — that cost the party seats in the House and Senate and returned President Obama to the White House.

In fact, various branches of the grass-roots movement vow to reassert themselves on the local and nation levels as Congress begins talks aimed at averting the “fiscal cliff.” They say their call for limited government is more relevant than ever before.

“As far as the tea party is concerned, we are still here,” said Amy Kremer, leader of the Tea Party Express. “We may not be out on the streets with the colorful signs like 2010, but we are here, we are engaged and we are going to continue to fight. We never thought this was a short-term process. It is going to take a long time to turn it around.”

Judson Phillips, head of Tea Party Nation, said the tea party’s first order of business is to rebut Republicans who want to blame the movement for their poor performance at the ballot box.

“They went well out of their way to ignore us, marginalize us and pretend we did not exist, and they gave us the most liberal nominee in the history of the Republican Party,” Mr. Phillips said, taking particular aim at Karl Rove, the mastermind behind former President George W. Bush’s career and founder of American Crossroads, a super PAC that spent more than $100 million in the campaign but had few successes to show for it.

The election this year proved to be more of a mixed bag for candidates supported by the tea party.  Rep. Michele Bachmann [barely] won another term in office, and voters pushed Sen.-elect Ted Cruz to victory in Texas. But those wins were offset by some high-profile flops in conservative states carried by presidential candidate Mitt Romney.

Richard Mourdock blasted onto the political scene after knocking off six-term Sen. Richard G. Lugar of Utah in the GOP primary. But Mr. Mourdock lost in the general election after saying that when a rape results in a pregnancy “it is something that God intended to happen.”.

Republicans also saw another pickup slip away when Sen. Claire McCaskill fended off Rep. W. Todd Akin, who said the female body has ways of rejecting pregnancy in cases of “legitimate rape.”

In the lower chamber, tea party casualties included Rep. Joe Walsh of Illinois and Rep. Nan A.S. Hayworth of New York. Things got worse this week when Rep. Allen B. West, Florida Republican, conceded that he lost his bid for re-election to his Democratic challenger, Patrick Murphy.

Tea partyers said establishment candidates also fared poorly in the elections, pointing to the losses of George Allen in Virginia, Connie Mack in Florida, Tommy G. Thompson in Wisconsin and Scott P. Brown in Massachusetts.

The irony is that each of the "establishment candidates" that lost embraced the agenda of the Christofascists/Tea Party, George Allen being a prime example of this phenomenon.  In doing so, he alienated women, minorities, the nones, and gays.  Yet the Kool-Aid drinkers still refuse to admit their role in leading the GOP to defeat.   It will be entertaining watching them trying to drag the GOP to further political oblivion.

Demographics Favor Obama Over Romney

Besides lamenting the dramatic lurch of the Republican Party to far right/Christianist insanity, I continue to be dumbfounded that the GOP is placing all of its eggs in a shrinking demographic - i.e., aging white far right Christians and the ignorance worshiping loons in the Tea Party - and possibly throwing away the future.  Just about every report on the nation's changing demographics ought to be a loudly ringing alarm bell for the GOP, yet in its quest to be the party of political whores to the far right, the party embraces policies that alienate future generations of younger voters be it on issues of immigration to same sex marriage.  A piece in The Daily Beast looks at how the nation's changing demographics will favor Obama, not Romney, in November.  Here are highlights: 

It was no fluke four years ago that America elected its first black president, and the trends that helped Barack Obama make history are evident today in demographics that favor his reelection. Millennials, the most liberal generation, are increasing at the rate of 4 million a year; there were 48 million in ’08, there are 64 million today, and Obama won them by 66 percent. Minorities too are growing as a share of the electorate, and Obama won them last time by 80 percent.

After the disappointments of the last four years, it’s unlikely that Obama will match his ’08 margins with these demographics. But to win, he has to do well enough among millennials and minorities to compensate for his weakness among white working-class voters, who were once the core of the Democratic base and now are the GOP’s bread and butter. “A real wild card is how many of them are going to show up,” 

 More single people, secular people, and people with college degrees are all part of what Teixeira calls a “warming trend” toward Democrats. White working-class voters, the group most resistant to Obama, were 28 percent of the electorate in ’08, and they’re down another 3 percent this year. But that’s a national number; in Ohio, a battleground state, they are 54 percent of the electorate. 

The white working class is “plummeting” as a share of voters, said Teixeira, replaced by white college graduates and minorities.   .   .   .    “Even if Obama lost working-class whites by 23 points, he could still win the election because the country has changed so much,” said Teixeira. 

The history of political parties is that over the long term they adjust to changing demographics and evolving attitudes. Trende predicts that by the time his young children are in college, the GOP will embrace gay marriage. And Teixeira said the Democratic Party, if it wants to retain the loyalty of Hispanics and young people, will have to deliver for them on economic growth and opportunity. “They can’t just rely on protecting Medicare and Social Security,” he said.

In the short term, though, there is a less harmonious scenario, a “racialized” politics that will play out over the coming months as the GOP doubles down on the share of the electorate it must carry by a big margin, those white working-class voters.  .   .   .   .  Evidence of this racialization is evident in Arizona, said Trende, where Gov. Jan Brewer “did everything she possibly could to alienate Latinos.” Running for reelection in 2010, Brewer ran behind McCain with Hispanics, but ahead of him by six or seven points among whites as he won reelection to the U.S. Senate.

More on the GOP's Alienation of Hispanic Voters

While the Christianist/Tea Party base of the Republican Party would most likely like to deport all Hispanics from the country - along with all other non-whites and non-Christians - a few in the GOP seem to be waking up to the fact that the constant anti-immigrant mantra is potential political suicide. One such individual is the Chimperator's far smarter brother, Jeb Bush, who has an op-ed in the Washington Post that lectures the GOP on what needs to be done to avoid throwing away the GOP's 2012 election chances. I suspect that the message will fall on deaf ears with most in the GOP base which is best defined by its loathing of anyone who isn't a gun packing far right white evangelical Christian. If they reject the message, so much the better in my view. Here's a sampling of Bush's message to the ignorance and bigotry embracing GOP base:

In the 15 states that are likely to decide who controls the White House and the Senate in 2013, Hispanic voters will represent the margin of victory.For the Republican Party, the stakes could not be greater. Just eight years after the party’s successful effort to woo Hispanic voters in 2004, this community — the fastest-growing group in the United States, according to census data — has drifted away.

Here are four suggestions on how Republican candidates can regain momentum with the most powerful swing voters.

First, we need to recognize this is not a monochromatic community but, rather, a deeply diverse one. Hispanics in this country include Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, Cubans and many others. Some came here 50 years ago to make a better life; others came last year. Some have lots of education, some have none.

Second, we should echo the aspirations of these voters. The American immigrant experience is the most aspirational story ever told. Immigrants left all that was familiar to them to come here and make a better life for their families.

Third, we should press for an overhaul of our education system. . . . . But we have to move beyond simplistic plans to “get rid of the Department of Education” and focus on substantive, broad-based reform that includes school choice, robust accountability for underperforming schools and the elimination of social promotion, in which kids are passed along without mastering grade-level skills. . . . Hispanic voters, who often feel their children are trapped in failing schools, notice.

Finally, we need to think of immigration reform as an economic issue, not just a border security issue. . . . Republicans should reengage on this issue and reframe it. Start by recognizing that new Americans strengthen our economy. We need more people to come to this country, ready to work and to contribute their creativity to our economy. . . . We need to connect immigration to other pro-growth policies, so that new Americans can apply their talents here and succeed.

And when they come, as surely they will, we must welcome them, no matter whether they speak Spanish or Creole or Portuguese.

It's actually an intelligent message. However, given the GOP base's zero sum view of things in this country, I suspect gains by Hispanics will be viewed as something lost by the white evangelical Christian crowd.

The Correlation Between Religious Belief and Science Illiteracy

I have long contended that the Christian Right - and now by extension, the Republican Party - embraces ignorance in a rear guard effort to protect their house of cards religious beliefs from collapsing in the face of hard, objective evidence that the Bible is anything but inerrant. And this willingness to embrace ignorance is often pretty shocking. It also carries over into areas beyond just a simple denial of the theory of evolution - and more recently a denial that Adam and Eve in fact never existed as described in Genesis. Via Civil Commotion, I came across an article on Why Evolution is True that looks at studies that confirm what many of us have long thought. The figures are frightening and one cannot be help wonder how America is going to remain competitive in the world when large segments of the American population are actively making the decision to remain ignorant. Here are some article highlights:

there’s this, from an analysis by David Masci at the Pew Forum in 2007:

When asked what they would do if scientists were to disprove a particular religious belief, nearly two-thirds (64%) of people say they would continue to hold to what their religion teaches rather than accept the contrary scientific finding, according to the results of an October 2006 Time magazine poll.

It also seems obvious that religion impedes acceptance of not just evolution, but science in general—at least that brand of science, like stem-cell research or work on global warming—that threatens religious views. That conclusion has just been buttressed by a new paper by Darren E. Sherkat in Social Science Quarterly, “Religion and scientific literacy in the United States.” Sherkat’s analysis plainly shows that even excluding issues of evolution, religion in America plays a substantial role in reducing science literacy.

[T]he 2006 General Social Survey (GSS) collected by the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) here at the University of Chicago, a survey of 4,510 randomly chosen Americans who were asked questions about their race, income, immigrant status, geographic region of residence, gender, urban or rural home, and so on. . . . The GSS also surveyed people about their religious identification and how they interpreted the Bible.

The results, especially for the effect of religion, were striking:

■ The percentage of correct answers on the science exam was strongly (and statistically significantly) affected by religious beliefs. Those who take the Bible as the literal word of God scored 54% correct, those who see the Bible as “inspired by God” got 68% correct, and those who see the Bible as a “book of fables” got 75% correct. This classification explained 13% of the total variation in science literacy.

■ Dividing up people by religious identification rather than by how they regarded the Bible, we also see strong effects on science scores. Sectarian Protestants scored 55% correct, Catholics 65%, “other Protestants” and non-Christians 68%, and nonbelievers (yay!) 72%.

Fundamentalists are less science literate than those who see the Bible as inspired by God, who in turn are less science literate than those who see the Bible as a book of fables.

Sherkat concludes that: The gap between sectarians and fundamentalists and other Americans is quite substantial. Indeed, only education is a stronger predictor of scientific proficiency than are religious factors. . . .Scientific literacy is low in the United States relative to other developed nations, and this research suggests that religious factors play a substantial role in creating these deficits.

Sherkat also found that Catholicism is a significant factor reducing science literacy . . .

It would seem that rather than worry about immigrants threatening America's future (at least in the minds of the "godly Christians"), the Christianist ought to take a good look in the mirror and grasp that they are one of the biggest threats to America's future prosperity and place in the world.

The Continued Price of Bigotry

I have often argued - and studies have confirmed - that states and regions that embrace bigotry and intolerance suffer economically and find themselves on the bottom of the heap in the quest to attract businesses and investment. Alabama is finding out just how true this is in the wake of its new anti-foreigner immigration law which, as noted last week, lead to the arrest of a Mercedes-Benz executive. That debacle may be a belated wake up call to folks in Alabama who truly need to get their heads out of their asses and come into the 21st century. Yes, the Bible thumping Christianists and white supremacists (increasingly these two toxic elements are one and the same) who hate blacks, gays, immigrants of all stripes and Hispanics in particular will shriek and howl, but it's time that their pernicious influence be kicked to the curb if the state seeks to prosper. An editorial in the New York Times looks at the price Alabama has inflicted on itself. Here are highlights:

It’s early yet for a full accounting of the economic damage Alabama has done to itself with its radical new immigration law. Farmers can tally the cost of crops left to rot as workers flee. Governments can calculate the loss of revenues when taxpayers flee. It’s harder to measure the price of a ruined business reputation or the value of investments lost or productivity lost as Alabamians stand in line for hours to prove their citizenship in any transaction with the government.

A growing number of Alabamians say the price will be too high, and there is compelling evidence that they are right. Alabama is already at the low end of states in employment and economic vitality. It has long struggled to lure good jobs and shed a history of racial intolerance.

That was turning around and many foreign manufacturers, including Mercedes-Benz, Hyundai and Honda, have set up there. Its business-friendly reputation took a serious blow with the arrest in Tuscaloosa of a visiting Mercedes manager who was caught driving without his license and taken to jail as a potential illegal immigrant.

Sheldon Day, the mayor of Thomasville, has aggressively recruited foreign companies to his town, including a Chinese company — Golden Dragon Precise Copper Tube Group. . . . Mayor Day is now worried about that project and future prospects. He was quoted by The Press-Register in Mobile as saying business inquiries had dried up since the law was passed. “I know the immigration issue is being used against us.”

For all of the talk about clearing the way for unemployed Americans, there is no evidence that Alabamians in any significant numbers are rushing to fill the gap left by missing farm laborers and other low-wage immigrant workers.

The law’s damage is particularly heartbreaking in poor towns across the state, where small businesses are the economic lifeblood. We’ve spoken with Latino shopkeepers and restaurant owners in places like Albertville who say business is catastrophically down, with customers in hiding or flight. The situation isn’t much better in Huntsville and Birmingham.

There should be no doubt about the moral repugnance of Alabama’s law, which seeks to deny hardworking families the means to live. But even some of the law’s most enthusiastic supporters are beginning to acknowledge the law’s high economic cost. There is growing talk of revising or repealing the legislation. The sooner Alabama does so — and other states learn — the better.

Will Virginia learn from Alabama's debacle? Probably not given the near mentally ill members of the GOP here in Virginia that will likely sign on to the lunacy of Ken Kookinelli Cuccinelli and Christofascist Bob Marshall. Only a severe negative economic impact might wake folks up. Meanwhile, backwater areas of the state will become even less attractive to would be investors and new businesses.

Growing GOP Extremism at the State Level

The growing insanity of the Republican Party at the national level - e.g, that Michele Bachmann could even launch a presidential campaign that was taken seriously - is frightening enough. But in some ways even more frightening things are developing at the state level. Mississippi's legislation to grant embryo's person hood status so as to criminalize abortion and even some types of contraception is one such example (its no coincidence as Bob Felton notes that Mississippi high school graduates have an average composite ACT score of 18.81 — the lowest in the country) that might actually become law. Another case of batshitery comes from Alabama - another state not exactly known for embracing modernity and civil rights for all - where the state is challenging the right of the United States Justice Department to investigate possible civil rights abuses connected to Alabama's anti-immigrant immigration law in a manner reminiscent of George Wallace back in the battles over desegregation. The New York Times editorial looks at this disturbing mindset and these are some highlights:

Surely Alabama’s attorney general, Luther Strange, did not mean to summon the memory of Gov. George Wallace when he picked a fight with the Department of Justice last week over the state’s new immigration law.

Surely no law-enforcement official of his stature would have responded to a fact-gathering request by challenging the federal government’s “legal authority” to investigate reports of civil rights abuses. Could there be an attorney general in the South — or anywhere — who is not acutely aware, and mindful, of the Civil Rights Act of 1964?

The federal inquiry was prompted by the state’s new immigration law, which took effect in September, part of which requires schools to check the immigration status of schoolchildren and their parents. The Justice Department has already sued Alabama over the law, the nation’s cruelest collection of immigration enforcement schemes and punishments. After receiving reports that students were being harassed and bullied, and that frightened parents were keeping children out of school, the department asked 39 school superintendents for data on student absences and withdrawals since the school year began.

Instead of acknowledging that the Supreme Court has upheld every child’s right to a public education regardless of immigration status, and that the new law requires schools to collect the information that the government was seeking, Mr. Strange sent Thomas Perez, head of the Civil Rights Division, an ultimatum. . . . . “Your letter does not state your legal authority to demand the information or to compel its production. If you have such legal authority, please provide it to me by noon Central Standard Time on Friday, November 4, 2011. Otherwise, I will assume that you have none and will proceed accordingly.”


Mr. Perez’s reply, sent Friday, was to the point. He cited Title IV of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Equal Educational Opportunities Act. He also reminded Mr. Strange of an array of other laws that federal agencies would be considering when investigating possible violations in Alabama: the Fair Housing Act, the Safe Streets Act, the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, the Fair Labor Standards Act and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, “among others.”

The law’s architects and supporters proclaim that their goal is to catastrophically disrupt the lives of illegal immigrants and their families. With reports of harassment and panic, and of a mass exodus of immigrants fleeing the state, the potential for civil rights abuses is acutely obvious.

That Alabama’s attorney general would not welcome a federal inquiry, but bristle instead, with an implicit appeal to state’s rights — with all the defiant history of intolerance and minority oppression those words suggest — says volumes. All Americans should feel ashamed.

No doubt some readers will accuse me of beating up Republicans while giving Democrats a free pass. I make no claim that Democrats are perfect or that the Democratic Party doesn't have problems too. However, the increasing level of hate, incivility and desire to turn the clock back to less than honorable periods in this nation's history seems to derive increasingly solely from the GOP and its Christianist/Tea Party base. They would turn American into something very ugly if they could have their way.

What a GOP Senate Might Mean for Virginia

Next month the Virginia General Assembly is up for re-election and the eyes of political junkies and those who care about Virginia's future are focused on who will hold control of the Virginia Senate. For those not in the know, the Democrat majority controlled Senate has been the principal bulwark against GOP/Christianst/Tea Party extremism for the last two years But for Democrat control, God only knows what further horrors would have occurred and what pet legislation of the Christofascists at The Family Foundation might have become law. Every Virginia voter who values logic, reason, separation of church and state, and equality for all citizens regardless of race, creed, national origin and sexual orientation MUST get out to the polls and vote against the GOP candidates backed by Christianist/Tea Party extremists. In the Norfolk Ghent/Larchmont area, that means it is essential to vote for Senator Ralph Northam who is being challenged by a well funded Tea Party/Christian Right challenger. The Washington Post noted recently when it announced its Senate endorsements that the Democrat controlled Senate has been the only adult in the room at the General Assembly. Here are highlights:

SINCE THE 2007 ELECTIONS, when they gained a narrow majority in the upper house of Virginia’s General Assembly, Senate Democrats have been the grown-ups in Richmond. The role was forced on them by House Republicans, who have sent over waves of reckless legislation.

Senate Democrats defeated a House attempt to force Virginia colleges and universities to allow students and faculty to carry guns on campus and a bill to repeal the state’s 20-year-old law limiting individuals to one handgun purchase a month. They killed legislation targeting illegal immigrants that would have plunged Virginia into the same bitter debates and federal litigation that have ensnared Arizona and Alabama. They rejected a bill that would have outlawed abortion in Virginia by granting fetuses legal rights and another that would have forced welfare recipients to undergo drug screenings. They halted Republican attempts to raid scarce funds for public schools and colleges.

Northern Virginia has just one sitting Republican senator, which suggests the region’s voters have found the latest generation of Republicans too extreme, partisan or divorced from state and local issues. Unfortunately, in our view, that remains the case in most of the Senate races.

Still not convinced of the extreme importance of getting to the polls and voting Democrat (even if holding your nose in the process)? Here's a compilation of some batshitery that might become the law in Virginia if the Democrats lose control of the Virginia Senate via NECN.com:

The House's most prolific author of anti-abortion bills, Del. Robert G. Marshall, R-Prince William, said he would celebrate a conservative Senate takeover. Among the bills he might bring back is one that would effectively end abortion by granting legal rights of personhood to fetuses.

Other bills that were dead on arrival before the current Senate could make victorious encores in a Senate run from the right. They would:

— Make it a crime for a woman to cause her own miscarriage or to coerce a young woman into having an abortion.

— Require doctors to offer to anesthetize a fetus before performing an abortion.

— Repeal Virginia's 20-year-old law limiting individuals to one handgun purchase per month.

— Allow people with permits to carry concealed handguns to take their weapons onto most any government property, including libraries, emergency shelters and parks. Colleges would also be barred from adopting firearm policies more restrictive than Virginia's, which are among the most permissive in the nation.

— Bar undocumented immigrants from enrolling in state colleges, deny public assistance to illegal immigrants, track numbers of pupils who take English as a second language and allow employers to fire employees for not speaking English.

— Establish an alternative Virginia currency should the Federal Reserve collapse.

— Extend Virginia's often-used death penalty to people convicted as accomplices to murders.

— Compel drug screening for welfare recipients.

— End vaccinations required of all sixth-grade girls against a sexually transmitted virus that can cause cervical cancer later, although parents who object can already opt out their children.

My friend Senator Janet Howell rightly described what would happen to Virginia if the GOP takes control of the Virginia Senate: "Virginia would be viewed nationally as a laughingstock," Howell said. "Some of the things they want to do would be detrimental to business growth and expansion in Virginia. Our public schools would suffer, as would our human services." In truth, Virginia would find itself governed by the Christianist version of Sharia law.

GOP Congressman: Whites Will Lose Freedom if DREAM Act Passes

It is amazing how outright racist some within the GOP have become. It's to the point where they don't even speak in code words anymore. A case in point is Congressman Dana Rohrabacher (R-California) who seems to be inviting a race war with some of his inflammatory statements. Rohrabacher sees Hispanics as an evil threat and wants conservative media to "Please alert the people, if Americans aren’t alerted to this, we’re going to lose our freedom and we know it’s in jeopardy." So besides hating gays, non-Christians, and blacks, the GOP base seems to want an open season on Hispanics as well. It's yet another example of the "family values" party becoming something horrid indeed. Think Progress has coverage of Rohrabacher's racist insanity. Here are highlights:
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In their efforts to bring down the DREAM Act, which would give children of undocumented immigrants who complete college or volunteer for the military a path to citizenship, conservatives have been smearing the bill as “backdoor amnesty” for undocumented immigrants and claiming it creates a loophole for terrorists. Unfortunately, many of their attacks have also taken on racial undertones.
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Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) . . . . took to the House floor Wednesday to warn that voting for “the Affirmative Action Amnesty Act,” as he dubbed DREAM, will “relegate the position of non-minority American citizens to behind those who are now in this country illegally.”
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Appearing on Radio America with Greg Corombus yesterday, Rohrabacher expanded on the dangers to white people of DREAM, explaining that the “real zinger” is that it puts minorities “ahead of every American child who’s not a minority.”
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Of course, the DREAM Act is not amnesty, nor is it affirmative action, and it is certainly not a measure to oppress white people. The bill extends conditional legal status for five years to young people who are upstanding citizens and in this country illegally by not fault of their own. It will also help enforce immigration laws, reduce the deficit, and strengthen the military, but that doesn’t seem to matter to Rohrabacher.
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What truly takes the cake on this bigotry is the fact that, if Rohrabacher is typical of the GOP members of Congress, he probably pats himself on the back for being a "Godly Christian" - even as he preaches hate and discord.

Arizona Federal Judge Inundated with Threats

Can't you just feel the love? The far right elements who hate immigrants (and Hispanics in particular) seem to always lean towards violence against anyone who merely seeks to uphold the constitutional rights of those who don't fit the mold of the GOP/tea party base. Namely, white, conservative a/k/a delusional, Christian, homophobic, and heterosexual. And I must point out that this element clearly includes most of the largest self-proclaimed Christian, "pro-family" organizations if one follows their websites.

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Now these self-described patriots and Christians are bestowing their "love" on U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton who struck down significant portions of Arizona's new racial profiling immigration law that would require citizens to carry proof of citizenship like something out of Nazi Germany or the former Soviet Union. It seems that Judge Bolton has received hundreds of threats, some of which sound like they include death threats. And people still refuse to admit that these far right elements aren't a clear and present danger to society? I sincerely hope that these threats are investigated and some folks criminally prosecuted with plenty of publicity for their hate motivated behavior. Obviously, it will be telling to see who some of these individuals are and the groups with which they have affiliations. Here are highlights from the Chicago Sun Times:
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U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton received hundreds of threats at her court offices within hours of her ruling last week on Arizona's tough and controversial immigration law.
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"She has been inundated," said U.S. Marshal David Gonzales, indicating his agents are taking some seriously. "About 99.9 percent of the inappropriate comments are people venting. They are exercising their First Amendment rights, and a lot of it is perverted. But it's that 0.1 percent that goes over the line that we are taking extra seriously."
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Bolton put on hold key provisions, including the heart of the statute that would give police the authority to check a suspect's immigration status during routine stops if there was reasonable suspicion that the suspect was in the country illegally. Her decision also blocks sections of the law that would require documented immigrants to carry their registration papers.
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The increase in threats coincides with more online use and the proliferation of blogs, he said. A quick scan shows many sites and discussion forums where Bolton is called a traitor or other, unprintable names. "She's tough as nails. She takes this as all part of her job," Gonzales said.

Rio Wins 2016 Olymic Games

With all of the media hype of Obama's advocacy for the 2016 Oympic Games to be in Chicago, it's ironic - but in some ways totally logical - that Chicago lost out to Rio. Don't get me wrong. I love Chicago and think it is a wonderful city and the financial impact of having the games held there would have been benificial. On the other hand it is about time that a city in South America was selected for the Olympic Games. Brazil in particular is fitting because it has the potential to become a powerhouse, especially with the huge new oil reserves discovered offshore. Rio, San Paulo and other cities are modern and I believe the games will showcase the county's potential. One other aspect that AmericaBlog brings up is the fact that the USA is increasingly seen as an unfriendly country when it comes to foreigners and I can just imagine what foreigners think when they see the birthers and teabaggers in full anti-immigrant rant. Here are a few thoughts from AmericaBlog:

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Between the absurd tax that Congress is slapping on to foreign visitors and the generally horrible interrogations when arriving, maybe people don't realize what an unattractive destination the US has become. I've watched it myself and have been floored with how nasty and aggressive US immigration can be compared to other countries. I've entered around 50 countries across six continents and can say the US is near the bottom. Nobody is asking for the US to drop safety procedures, but really, entering the US is a miserable experience for many. That needs to change.

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Even 20+ years ago when I traveled extensively overseas for an oil company coming back into the USA could be an unpleasant hassle compared to many other countries - and I was an American. I can only image the hassle that foreigners now receive. The other thing that this decision by the IOC has revealed is sickness of the USA hating GOP base. This video shows some celebrating Chicago's loss of the Games.

John McCain Agrees With Statement About Need to Reenact the Draft

No doubt John McCain's handlers will be working to try to make this gaffe - assuming it was a gaffe and not McCain's real view about bringing back the draft - go away since it will no doubt not sit well with many voters. Sadly, this kind of statement is all too typical of "100 years in Iraq" McCain. Listen to the video below or read the text below from Think Progress and reach your own conclusion. Is the man senile, incompetent, or in favor of a draft? I don't know about others, but I surely do not want my son drafted so that McCain can launch some reprise of the Iraq War disaster. Note too, the anti-immigrant language.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Senator McCain I truly hope you get the opportunity to chase Bin Laden right to the gates of hell and push him in as you stated on your forum. I do have a question though. Disabled veterans, especially in this state, have horrible conditions [...] My son is an officer in the Air Force, and I am a vet and I was raised in a military family. I think it is a sad state of affairs when we have illegal aliens having a Medicaid card that can access specialist top physicians, the best of medical and our vets can’t even get to a doctor. These are the people that we tied yellow ribbons for and Bush patted on the back. If we don’t reenact the draft I don’t think we will have anyone to chase Bin Laden to the gates of hell.

JOHN MCCAIN: Ma’am let me say that I don’t disagree with anything you said and thank you and I am grateful for your support of all of our veterans.(Town Hall; Las Cruces, NM 08/20/08)