Jul 012013
TomCat
Jul 012013
I suppose you don’t need me to tell you that Republicans are trying to prevent the passage of a real immigration reform package including a path to citizenship. As time passes, their reasons become more and more ludicrous, but today I heard one that sets a new standard. Republicans are doing undocumented workers a favor by denying them a path to citizenship.
A Republican Congressman argued that the immigration measures making their way through the House of Representatives won’t include a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants because many don’t want to achieve legal status.
“The 11 million is not a homogeneous group,” Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee’s Immigration Subcommittee, said during an appearance on Fox News Sunday. “All of the 11 million don’t want citizenship. It would be curious to force it on those who don’t want it,” he added, noting that millions won’t be able to pass background checks.
Gowdy also insisted that the House will not take up the Senate measure… [emphasis added]
Inserted from <Think progress>
Now, the ones who cannot pass background checks would be deported under any plan, so Republicans do them no favor at all to deny a path to citizenship to the rest. For those who do not wish to become US citizens, there is a guest worker program. So why do Republicans really want to deny citizenship to these workers? Of course, one reason is racism. Another reason is that keeping workers undocumented keeps them vulnerable to economic exploitation by the 1%, and that drives everyone’s wages down. But mostly, it’s about power, and to Republicans, voting while brown is almost as great a crime as voting while black.
Jul 012013
Here are the results of our Republican Alienation Poll.
And here are you comments.
Showing comments 1–14 of 14.
Posted by Mary 23 hours ago.
All of the above. the republicans dislikes everyone, they are doing their best to get the Hispanic vote by trying to get a decent immigration bill; but they aren’t doing a good job with the women voters (except the idiot submissive fools who can’t think for themselves); hell they forgot about the Asian voters…can go on and on
Posted by Patty June 28, 2013 at 11:24 am.
Definitely women. We make up more than half the population and are included in the other groups as well.
Posted by SoINeedAName June 27, 2013 at 7:28 pm.
WOMEN
No "Ifs", "Ands" or "Buts"
And WRT that RethugliKKKan "Outreach" program:
Please proceed, GOP.
Posted by John Dasef June 27, 2013 at 12:37 am.
All of the above
Posted by Anna U June 26, 2013 at 8:16 am.
Of course I would say all of the above aswell, but still think: Muslims.
Posted by Dandelion June 25, 2013 at 10:17 am.
I know Sanity isn’t the one that is most obvious, because you’d have to also be insane to have voted for the lot that is elected. As they say, birds of a feather flock together so they most likely don’t see how insane their representatives are. But this whole thing has become insane. I feel like I’ve moved and gone into the Twilight Zone. Damn, is there a quicker way out of here?
Posted by Kathy B. June 25, 2013 at 8:59 am.
I picked other because they are all offensive.
Posted by Fred Lemon June 24, 2013 at 5:26 am.
All of the above!
Posted by Ann K June 23, 2013 at 1:45 pm.
"Other" for gun background checks.
Posted by John Dasef June 22, 2013 at 6:52 pm.
All of the above.
Posted by Lynn Squance June 22, 2013 at 1:48 am.
I clicked ‘voting’ because voting is universal and has elements of all the other named groups. But it was a toss up between ‘women’ who make up 51% of the US population and ‘voting’.
Now, if by ‘sanity’ you are referring to insaniTea, that is in all the Republican/Teabagger wars. And of course there is the war on Mr Obama, war on the poor, and their incessant war on affordable healthcare. The Republican/Teabaggers are just a bunch of warmongering fools!
Posted by Angelica June 21, 2013 at 5:24 pm.
Women let them know who the boss is in Texas. I think women are really angry and fed up with these clowns.
Posted by Jim Phillips June 21, 2013 at 10:41 am.
All of them!
Posted by Marva June 20, 2013 at 2:19 pm.
Women are in every one of the other groups, so make up a plurality no matter what.
I would not discount the Seniors, however. AARP is pretty activist.
I voted for Republican War on Voting, knowing it would not be the most popular, and I’m pleasantly surprised to see it come in second. As I see it, more people should be alienated by Republicans trying to disenfranchise legal voters, because if the can control who can vote and who can’t, The USA will be no more.
A new poll is up. Don’t forget to vote!
Jul 012013
I’m writing early for day 17, and the National Weather Service has issued a Dangerous Heat Advisory until 9 PM. 🙁
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today’s took me 3:49 (average 5:33). To do it, click here. How did you do?
Short Takes:
From Freak Out Nation (H/T Ellen M): Nothing says patriotism like punishing a student for singing ‘Eyes of Texas.’ That’s what Lt. Governor David Dewhurst has in mind for Leigh Larson, a leader of and organizer with College Kids For Wendy. Larson has received notice that the Lt. Governor and Attorney General Greg Abbott may be considering pressing charges on her along with others for “disturbing the peace” and “inciting a riot.”
Dang! Had she sung ‘We Shall Overcome’, Texas Republicans would give her the death penalty.
From Think Progress: This past Tuesday, President Obama unveiled his second-term plan for cutting carbon emissions, and delivered a bracing call for the American economy to advance into a clean energy future. This past Wednesday, House Republicans responded by moving a bill out of the Appropriations Committee that would cut investments in renewables by nearly a billion dollars.
They’ll make up for it by finding a new way to subsidize polluters.
From NY Times: According to an updated analysis, the top 200 chief executives at public companies with at least $1 billion in revenue actually got a big raise last year, over all. The research, conducted for Sunday Business by Equilar Inc., the executive compensation analysis firm, found that the median 2012 pay package came in at $15.1 million — a leap of 16 percent from 2011.
That’s where the money that could be used to create jobs is going, exactly as Republicans planned it.
Cartoon:
Currently ignored by India, Iran, Israel, North Korea, and Pakistan.
Jun 302013
This is Jim’s first Big Mouth Award, as he is a relative newcomer here., but lately, he has joined in almost every day. He hails from California and is a denizen of Care2. He is a strong progressive and a proponent of human rights, animal protection, and environmental sanity. I don’t know all that much about him, except I do know we need more just like him! Congrats Jim!
Jun 302013
Going into day 15, this will be my only article today, unless I get a second wind. Yesterday was even hotter than forecast. Today looks to be the same. I am wrung out.
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today’s took me 4:05 (average 5:02). To do it, click here. How did you do?
Short Takes:
From Bill Moyers: Here in the richest country on earth, 50 million of us — one in six Americans — go hungry. More than a third of them are children. And yet Congress can’t pass a Farm Bill because our representatives continue to fight over how many billions to slash from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, better known as food stamps. The debate is filled with tired clichés about freeloaders undeserving of government help, living large at the expense of honest, hardworking taxpayers. But a new documentary, A Place at the Table, paints a truer picture of America’s poor.
Like most Republican plans that steal from the poor, this one would cost taxpayers more than the dollars Republicans would steal to give to the 1%.
From Crooks and Liars: Saw this from our own Dave Edwards, and this part made me chuckle.
In a Capitol Hill press conference, Gohmert referred to the Supreme Court justices who voted in favor of striking down the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) as “the five new holy quintets.”
“For them — I don’t know what kind of cloistered walls this court has been behind,” he opined. “They were not aware that the most wise man in history, Solomon, said there’s nothing new under the sun. And this isn’t new, and it’s been tried over and over. And it’s usually tried at the end of a great civilization.”
…
“Go Go Goose-step” should check his facts. The man he calls “the most wise man in history” and used to support marriage between one man and one woman just happened to have 300 wives and 700 concubines. What InsaniTEA!
From Think Progress: President Obama’s speech about climate change at Georgetown University on Tuesday laid out a comprehensive plan to deal with what ClimateProgress editor Joe Romm called “the moral urgency of cutting carbon pollution.” Not surprisingly, the President’s words have fallen on deaf ears on the Republican side of the aisle in the House of Representatives.
Today, less than a month after it was introduced, the House passed H.R. 2231, the Offshore Energy and Jobs Act, by a vote of 235 to 186. The bill reads like Big Oil’s Christmas list. It would open virtually all of the U.S. Atlantic coast, the Pacific coast off Southern California, and much of Alaska’s offshore space to new drilling; require the Obama administration to create a new Five-Year Plan for offshore operations; and generally perpetuate an energy agenda driven by climate deniers.
As much as you may want to bitch about Obama’s environmental policy, and I do it too, this is the alternative. The notion that one is as bad as the other is a total lie.
Cartoon:
This will also be the fate of the Tea Parties, if Republicans successfully establish their desired totalitarian regime of one-party Republican rule, in which elections exist only for show. These storm troopers will be expendable, just as those were.
Jun 292013
I gave Texas the day off yesterday to pick on Kentucky for a change, but one day is all they get. I can’t help it. Texas Republicans have bent over backward of late to illustrate the difference between lying Republican rebranding claims and actual Republican business as usual. In light of the Republican response there to SCROTUS murdering the Voting Rights Act, is Texas blatantly racist?
The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday vacated its rulings on cases involving Texas’s Voter ID law and redistricting map, citing its ruling Tuesday that struck down a portion of the Voting Rights Act.
The court had suspended the Voter ID law and a GOP-drafted redistricting map by citing the portion of the Voting Rights Act that requires preclearance with the U.S. attorney general or federal judges for electoral changes in certain areas with a history of racial discrimination. After the court struck down a portion of the law on Tuesday, those rulings effectively were rendered moot.
Thursday’s action sends the matters back to lower courts for further litigation. Without Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act in effect, Texas Republicans said, the Voter ID law should move forward. Democrats and minority groups may still sue to stop it… [emphasis added]
Inserted from <Washington Post>
The Post really downplayed the courts decision that found intent of both the Voter ID Law and Redistricting plan was to discriminate against minority voters.
Rachel Maddow and Marc Veasey (D-TX) discussed the policies Texas Republicans are about to implement that were previously adjudged too racist to allow by the courts.
Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
"With discriminatory purpose" said the court. We're good to go said Rick the P*%$&. I already know what Republicans in Congress are going to do. The obvious extremists will spew hate as before. The sneaky ones (the rest) will feign cooperation, but will refuse to condemn the obvious haters, because they really support them, but just don't admit it. Then they will sabotage any real attempts at a solution.
Support LGBT folks wherever they still lack equality. Support the Blacks, Latinos, Asians, Muslims, Seniors, Disabled, Poor and everyone else whose right to vote Republicans are trying to steal.
So is Texas blatantly racist? I'd say no, but the Republicans who run it, and a those who run lots of other states sure are, not by what they say, but by what they do.
Jun 292013
The heat is miserable going, into day 15, plus the humidity is 80%, unusually high for hot weather here. Forgive my brevity.
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today’s took me 4:01 (average 5:48). To do it, click here. How did you do?
Short Takes:
From MoveOn: What If Robert Reich Told You That Immigration Reform Would SAVE Our Economy?
As always Reich is clear, concise and exact. Click through to use the Twitter tool to spread the word, please. I did.
From MSNBC: Governor Ultrasound or Ultraca$h?
Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
McDonnell has clearly demonstrated his credentials. It’s hard to be more Republican than this.
From Raw Story: A meeting intended to improve police-community relations in Pittsburgh ended on Wednesday with a black teacher being arrested by a white officer.
Dennis Henderson, 38, told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazzette that he had left the Community Empowerment Association meeting to get a business card out of his car when he was shocked to observe how fast Zone 5 Officer Jonathan Gromek was driving…
…A criminal complaint obtained by the Post-Gazette indicated that Gromek had seen Henderson shouting in his rearview mirror.
Gromek reportedly confronted Henderson and asked him if he wanted to file a complaint. Henderson asked for the the officer’s name and badge number, and began recording the encounter on his cell phone. Henderson stated that Gromek tried to confiscate the phone so he passed it off to a person witnessing the encounter.
Police in the Republican Fascist Plutocracy of Corbettstan tend to resent being called out for breaking the law.
Cartoon:
This is what sparked the American Revolution. American patriots objected to taxation without representation. This is completely different from unpatriotic Tea Party seditionists, who threaten a revolution, because they dislike the laws, especially tax laws, that their elected representatives have passed.